GoCardless was founded in 2011 by Hiroki Takeuchi, Matt Robinson, and Tom Mayfield in London. The company started with a focus on making it easy for businesses to collect recurring payments via Direct Debit in the UK, and it’s since expanded to bank-to-bank payments globally.
The core idea is simple: card payments are expensive (1.5-3% per transaction) and have high failure rates for recurring billing. Bank-to-bank payments like Direct Debit, ACH, SEPA, and other local schemes are much cheaper (typically a flat fee of pennies) and have better success rates because there’s no card to expire.
GoCardless has built a single platform that connects to bank payment networks in over 30 countries. Merchants integrate once and can collect payments from customer bank accounts across the UK (Direct Debit), Europe (SEPA), US (ACH), Canada (PAD), Australia (BECS), and other markets.
The company added real-time bank payment options like open banking-powered “Instant Bank Pay” — where customers authorize payments directly from their banking app. This complements the traditional Direct Debit model with instant payment confirmation.
GoCardless serves over 85,000 businesses, from small SaaS companies to enterprises like DocuSign, Xero, and The Guardian. The company has raised over $300 million and was valued at $2.1 billion. It processes billions in annual payment volume. GoCardless is headquartered in London with offices in Paris, Melbourne, Munich, and San Francisco.
