Open Banking adoption at UK-licensed casinos

Open Banking is a regulated UK payment infrastructure that allows a player to authorise a direct transfer from their bank account to a gambling operator without entering card details or routing the payment through a third-party e-wallet. It works through providers regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the same open banking framework used for other bill and merchant payments, and the operator never sees or stores full bank login credentials during the process.

Its spread across UK-licensed casinos reflects several practical advantages over cards and e-wallets. Deposits typically settle instantly because the payment moves directly between regulated bank accounts rather than through a card scheme with its own settlement cycle, there are usually no card processing fees passed on to either party, and because the payment is authorised through the player's own banking app, it carries strong built-in identity assurance that can reduce the amount of separate verification an operator needs to request at deposit stage.

For UK players, the main practical differences from a card deposit are the confirmation flow, which redirects to your banking app rather than asking for card numbers, and the fact that Open Banking deposits are not typically reversible in the way a card chargeback can be, so the usual advice to treat a gambling deposit as final applies with a bit more force. Open Banking cannot currently be used for withdrawals at most operators, so a separate withdrawal method, usually the original deposit source under source-of-funds rules or a bank transfer, will still be needed.

This connects to Gambling Commission requirements in two ways. Operators must be able to verify the source of funds for larger transactions under anti-money laundering obligations, and the strong authentication built into Open Banking can streamline that requirement compared with an e-wallet, since the payment is already tied to a verified bank account. It also supports the LCCP's expectation that deposit methods should not obscure spending, since bank-linked payments make it harder to lose track of total spend across multiple unlinked payment methods.

What we watch for is broader adoption of Open Banking for withdrawals as well as deposits, which would close the current asymmetry, and whether more operators integrate spending insights from the connection into their own responsible gambling tools rather than treating it purely as a payment rail. For now, our practical guidance is that Open Banking is one of the faster and lower-friction deposit options where it is offered, but it should not be assumed to be reversible if a deposit is made in error.