The premise behind the Brite Payments UK launch is straightforward: British shoppers are losing patience at the checkout, and existing payment infrastructure is not keeping up. The company says it has now secured its Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), clearing the way for a phased roll-out of its Pay by Bank service to UK merchants and consumers.
To support the announcement, Brite Payments commissioned a survey of 2,000 UK adults, carried out by market research firm Appinio. The headline number: 47% of shoppers report experiencing checkout rage when shopping online, with one in six admitting to having sworn or shouted at the screen. Almost a quarter (24%) said they had avoided a purchase altogether because of anxiety about the returns process, and 15% said they deliberately bought less so that less money would be tied up if a refund was needed.
What the survey says about checkout friction
The survey findings go further than irritation. Almost one in five respondents (19%) said they would actively blacklist a retailer with poor payment options, and 17% said they had warned friends and family away from certain retailers. For merchants, that is reputational damage extending well beyond a single abandoned basket.
On the operational side, nearly a quarter (23%) of respondents said they had abandoned a purchase to avoid fetching a physical card. The survey also found that the average British adult loses roughly an hour a year filling in checkout forms. Scaled across the UK’s banked adult population, Brite Payments says this amounts to more than 55 million hours, or the equivalent of over 6,400 years, lost to payment admin annually. A quarter of shoppers (25%) reported a payment failing because of an input error, an expired card or a security check glitch, with just under one in ten switching to a different retailer as a direct result.
Whether the survey’s framing fairly isolates payment friction as the cause, rather than broader user experience issues, is a fair question. But the scale of the responses does at least suggest the category of problem is real and widespread.
The Brite Payments UK launch and what it involves
Brite Payments says it has operated since 2019 and has built a network connecting more than 3,800 banks across 27 European markets. The company claims its model simplifies instant payment and payout through a single API integration, allowing UK businesses to accept Pay by Bank both domestically and across its European network without managing local providers or waiting on slow settlement times.
Brite AB, the parent entity, is also a licensed Payment Institution under the supervision of Finansinspektionen, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, with corporate identity number 559116-1632. That Swedish licence is not incidental: in a post-Brexit environment, there is no automatic passport from a UK EMI licence into EU markets, meaning firms that want to operate on both sides of the Channel typically need to hold dual licences, as Crassula sets out in its guide to EMI licensing. Brite’s existing Finansinspektionen authorisation, combined with the newly granted FCA licence, positions it to serve both markets without relying on a single regulatory jurisdiction.
Obtaining the FCA licence was not a quick process by any measure. According to Binderr, the median payment and e-money case at the FCA closed in January to March 2026 took 207 days. That context matters when assessing how long Brite will have been working through the regulatory pipeline before this week’s announcement.
The UK market Brite is entering has over 15 million Open Banking users, and the company’s own survey found that 76% of British respondents said they were familiar with Pay by Bank. Yet Brite’s founder and chief executive officer Lena Hackelöer argues that familiarity has not translated into adequate infrastructure. ‘The UK is one of the most mature Open Banking markets in the world, but it’s been dominated by overseas card networks and reliance on legacy providers built for a single market. Both merchants and consumers are not just losing out, but are actively impacted, as our survey results show,’ she said.
Hackelöer also framed the launch in explicitly post-Brexit commercial terms: ‘Today’s launch is an exciting moment in a post-Brexit world, as UK merchants can easily start offering Pay by Bank to their local customers and customers across Europe, enabling their expansion internationally.’
The survey additionally found that more than 60% of respondents said they would prefer a payment provider not at risk of disruption caused by problems in another country, and 58% said they would actively choose a UK or European company over an overseas alternative. Whether that sentiment translates into actual switching behaviour at the checkout is a different question, and one the phased roll-out will eventually have to answer.
Hackelöer is scheduled to speak at Open Banking Expo UK & Europe 2026, taking place on 13-14 October at the Business Design Centre in London.
