Subscription-Payment Specialist GoCardless Boosts U.S. Business With Routing-Number Access

GoCardless Ltd., a London-based company specializing in handling international recurring payments, such as subscriptions, is eyeing a bigger presence in the U.S. market and has struck a deal that it expects will help process debits through the automated clearing house.

The arrangement, announced Monday, will let GoCardless access ABA routing numbers kept by Accuity, which has been the official registrar of this data for more than a century. Routing numbers are attached to U.S. checking accounts and are used to help clear and settle ACH and check payments. Details of the arrangement were not immediately available.

It’s not hard to fathom why GoCardless, a fintech founded in 2011, wants to expand in the U.S. market. The market controls 70% of recurring payments globally, according to data from Accuity. “Many of our customers want to collect from the U.S., so it was necessary to have the most accurate ABA routing-number information available and in a way that can be easily integrated into our payments processes. Accuity data will provide us with exactly that,” said Paul Foster, head of banking and scheme development at GoCardless, in a statement.

Evanston, Ill.-based Accuity says its Bankers Almanac for Payments, the name for its routing-number database, helps avoid rejected payments and associated costs.

The deal with Accuity is the latest step by GoCardless to build out an international payments network that relies on direct debits rather than costlier credit card transactions. The company, which allows organizations to take payments in a customer’s local currency and receive them in its own, last month unveiled what it called the world’s first effort to stitch together “debit systems from around the world.”

GoCardless processes $13 billion in annual volume and serves 50,000 clients. The company charges 2% plus 25 cents per international transaction, and relies on processing support from TransferWise. It has raised a total of more than $122 million in funding. Recent investors include Salesforce Ventures and Adams Street Partners.