Why we built bank-to-bank payments into Invoicr, and how it actually works

The problem nobody talks about

When we started MRVL Technologies, I spent months on job sites with electricians, plumbers, gardeners. Not to sell them anything. Just to watch how they worked. I noticed something odd: they'd finish a job, invoice the client, then wait five days for the card payment to clear, all while losing 2.5 per cent of their earnings to a payment processor.

For a £500 invoice, that's £12.50 gone. For a tradesperson on £2,000 a week, that adds up to £1,300 a year in pure fee bleed. Nobody celebrates that number, but everyone feels it.

The big invoicing platforms? They bundle card payments because it's easy. The payment processor handles it. They take a small cut. Everyone's happy except the person actually doing the work.

We asked ourselves a different question: what if there was a way to move money directly from your client's bank to yours, with almost no middleman?

How open banking actually gets the money from A to B

UK open banking is real infrastructure. Since 2018, every major UK bank has been required to open their APIs. When you send an invoice through Invoicr with a bank-to-bank payment option, here's what happens.

Your client receives the invoice. They see a 'Pay now' button. They tap it. Instead of being sent to a card payment page, they're redirected securely to their own bank. They log in (just like they always do). They confirm the payment amount and recipient. Then they authorise it. No card details leave their phone. No third-party processor sits in the middle charging a percentage.

The money moves from their account to yours. Usually within seconds, sometimes within a few hours depending on their bank's processing speed. You get a notification in Invoicr. Payment marked complete. No waiting for settlement, no recurring fees on every transaction.

The technology is called Open Banking, or sometimes PSD2 in Europe. It's the infrastructure that lets your phone check your balance across three different banks without typing in a password. We use it specifically for payments.

The fee? Around £0.40 per transaction, plus VAT. On that £500 invoice, you're looking at roughly £4 to get paid. Compare that to Stripe or Square at 2.5 per cent plus 20p, and the maths is obvious.

Why tradespeople need this more than anyone

Cards make sense if you're running a subscription service. You process hundreds of tiny payments. The percentage adds up, but it's predictable. You price it in.

Tradespeople don't work that way. You might invoice five clients a month. Maybe ten. Each one is a proper job. A bathroom refit, a boiler repair, a garden overhaul. The money involved is real to you. A 2.5 per cent hit on a £1,200 invoice is £30. On a £2,500 quote, it's £62.50. Over a year, for a busy tradesperson, that's hundreds or thousands in unnecessary costs.

We built Invoicr specifically for sole traders and small teams in the UK. Plumbers, electricians, gardeners, cleaners, decorators, mechanics. People who invoice in pounds, invoice sporadically but substantially, and live in the UK. For them, bank-to-bank payments aren't a nice extra feature. They're the whole point.

When you're starting out, every pound counts. When you're established, why would you leave money on the table?

The security question people always ask

The first time someone hears 'your client logs into their bank to pay you,' they ask: isn't that a security risk?

Actually, no. Open Banking handles security better than card payments do. Your client never gives you their bank credentials. They authenticate directly with their own bank. You never see their login. You never see their full account number. You just see that the payment arrived.

It's the same reason paying by card online feels safe now. The payment network sits between you and the money. Open Banking does the same thing, except the payment network is the banking system itself.

Invoicr uses TLS encryption for all communication. We're registered under the Financial Conduct Authority's Open Banking standards. Your client's bank confirms their identity. If something goes wrong, there's a dispute resolution process built into UK banking law.

In practice, it's more secure than asking someone to text you their card details, which used to happen all the time.

What happens on the business end

You send an invoice. You include a bank-to-bank payment link. Your client pays. The money lands in your account. That's the user experience.

Behind the scenes, Invoicr connects to the UK open banking network, confirms the payment went through, and logs it against the invoice. If you're on Pro or Business, you can set up automated payment reminders. Your client gets a friendly nudge a few days before the due date, with the same secure payment link. No chasing needed.

On the Business plan, your accountant can see all your invoices and payments via our accountant export feature. Everything's tagged with the right categories for VAT or CIS. You're not juggling spreadsheets and bank statements.

From a practical standpoint, it's like any other invoicing app, except the payment method costs you £4 instead of £12.50, and the money arrives faster.

Why this matters to how you price your work

I think about this a lot. If you're a sole trader and you invoice £20,000 a year, you're losing roughly £500 to card processing fees. That's not a small thing. It affects how much you can charge. It affects when you can hire help. It affects whether you can take time off.

Bank-to-bank payments don't solve everything. But they remove a specific, senseless friction. Your client has money. You need money. There's no reason a payment processor should take 2.5 per cent for facilitating that.

We made Invoicr free for the first five invoices so you could see if it works for you. If you send more than that, Pro is £9.99 a month or £79.99 a year. You get unlimited invoices, payment reminders, WhatsApp delivery, and quotes. The bank-to-bank payments work on every plan. You're not locked into a card processor. You're not losing a percentage every time someone pays you.

That Bristol plumber still uses Invoicr. He sends me the occasional note. Last month he said he'd finally hired his first assistant. The extra money made the difference.