GoCardless says it has processed the first GoCardless agentic payment in the UK, completing an AI-driven donation transaction end-to-end for Trussell, the anti-poverty charity and community of food banks. The company says the entire interaction lived within an AI chat, and that a donor could select a giving amount, learn how the funds would be used, and set up a Direct Debit mandate without leaving the conversation.
GoCardless Agentic Payment UK: How the Transaction Worked
According to GoCardless, donors can use the AI agent to find out more about Trussell’s work, then choose from three monthly giving options: £5, £10 or £15. Each amount comes with a description of how the money will be used. Once the supporter selects their option, the AI agent prompts them to enter their bank details and sets up a Direct Debit mandate on their behalf. The company frames this as keeping the payer in control while removing friction from the giving process.
GoCardless developed and launched the process within the Financial Conduct Authority’s AI Live Testing programme, which it was selected to join earlier this year. That programme is designed to support safe and responsible AI deployment. According to FinanceX Magazine, the FCA’s first named cohort, announced in December 2025, included NatWest, Monzo, Santander and Scottish Widows, with a second intake beginning testing from April 2026. GoCardless’s work with Trussell sits within that supervised environment.
The UK government has identified agentic payments as a high priority and as a practical test case for scaling AI safely across other emerging financial services uses. The National Payments Vision calls for account-to-account payments to become a genuine alternative to cards. For context on what is at stake globally, Morgan Stanley estimates AI agents could handle up to $385 billion of US e-commerce spending by 2030, though that figure refers to the US market and covers a wide range of AI-agent activity, not account-to-account payments specifically.
What GoCardless and Trussell Say
Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and chief executive officer of GoCardless, said the checkout flow was rooted in payer research: ‘Sixty-four per cent of UK consumers are open to AI managing their recurring payments, provided they keep control over limits or final approval.’ He added that direct debit and recurring Pay by Bank are ‘specifically built for this,’ unlike cards, and described the Trussell transaction as turning a ‘core belief’ about account-to-account payments into ‘tangible proof.’
Christianne McKenzie, head of individual giving at Trussell, said the process felt natural. ‘The giving process is a conversation, not just a form to fill out,’ she said. ‘Every recurring donation helps us reach more people in need. If agentic payments make it simpler for someone to commit to giving, that’s a genuine win for everyone.’
GoCardless’s Financial Position and Scale
The Trussell transaction is not GoCardless’s first claim to industry firsts, but it arrives at a point where the company’s own finances appear to be gaining traction. FinanceX Magazine reports that GoCardless recorded £126.8 million in revenue for its 2024 financial year, up 38% year on year, and that it achieved its first EBITDA-positive quarter in summer 2025. The company says it now serves more than 350,000 businesses across more than 30 markets, which gives the agentic payments claim some commercial context: this is not a startup proof-of-concept but a live transaction processed by a firm with an established customer base.
Whether the mechanism scales beyond a single charitable giving flow, and whether regulators beyond the FCA’s sandbox will be comfortable with AI agents setting up Direct Debit mandates without human-to-human interaction at any point, are questions the company has not yet had to answer at volume. The next test will be whether other organisations inside or outside the FCA’s programme follow with their own agentic payment implementations, and on what timeline.
