Pay.UK

Pay.UK Limited is the recognised operator and standards body for the United Kingdom's interbank retail payment systems. It runs the domestic rails that move most of the money in the UK economy: Bacs (batch Direct Debit and Direct Credit), the Faster Payment System (24/7 real-time account-to-account payments), and the Image Clearing System for cheques, alongside the Current Account Switch Service. On top of the rails it owns industry overlay services including Confirmation of Payee (the API-based account name-checking service that fights Authorised Push Payment fraud) and Request to Pay, and through its Standards Authority it defines UK payments standards and the ISO 20022 migration underpinning the New Payments Architecture. Pay.UK is a scheme and standards operator, not a self-serve API platform: it publishes rulebooks, participation requirements, and ISO 20022 message specifications rather than an open public API, and its technical standards are distributed through the gated Standards Source and Faster Payment System Standards Library portals (single-login, registration required). Confirmation of Payee is a documented, API-based peer-to-peer scheme that participants and approved vendors implement against Pay.UK's technical standards. Home market is the United Kingdom.

Pay.UK is profiled on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Payments, United Kingdom, Real-Time Payments, ISO 20022, and Account-to-Account.

Pay.UK’s developer surface includes documentation, getting-started guide, engineering blog, support, and 10 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
20.0/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
0 APIs
PaymentsUnited KingdomReal-Time PaymentsISO 20022Account-to-AccountFaster PaymentsDirect DebitPayment SchemeStandards BodyConfirmation of Payee

Kin Score

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scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 20.0/100 · emerging
Contract Quality 0.0 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 5.2 / 20
Commercial Clarity 4.2 / 20
Operational Transparency 0.0 / 13
Governance 0.0 / 12
Discoverability 6.8 / 10
Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only
Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/pay-uk: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Pay Uk Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

GettingStarted
GettingStarted

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation
Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

LLMsTxt
LLMsTxt

Design & Contract 1

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conformance
Conformance

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

StandardsLibrary
StandardsLibrary

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support
Support
 Contact
Contact

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

TermsOfService
TermsOfService
 PrivacyPolicy
PrivacyPolicy

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website
Website
 Blog
Blog

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Standards
Standards
 StandardsSource
StandardsSource

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: pay-uk
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/pay-uk/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: Pay.UK
kind: company
description: 'Pay.UK Limited is the recognised operator and standards body for the United Kingdom''s interbank retail payment
  systems. It runs the domestic rails that move most of the money in the UK economy: Bacs (batch Direct Debit and Direct Credit),
  the Faster Payment System (24/7 real-time account-to-account payments), and the Image Clearing System for cheques, alongside
  the Current Account Switch Service. On top of the rails it owns industry overlay services including Confirmation of Payee
  (the API-based account name-checking service that fights Authorised Push Payment fraud) and Request to Pay, and through
  its Standards Authority it defines UK payments standards and the ISO 20022 migration underpinning the New Payments Architecture.
  Pay.UK is a scheme and standards operator, not a self-serve API platform: it publishes rulebooks, participation requirements,
  and ISO 20022 message specifications rather than an open public API, and its technical standards are distributed through
  the gated Standards Source and Faster Payment System Standards Library portals (single-login, registration required). Confirmation
  of Payee is a documented, API-based peer-to-peer scheme that participants and approved vendors implement against Pay.UK''s
  technical standards. Home market is the United Kingdom.'
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
tags:
- Payments
- United Kingdom
- Real-Time Payments
- ISO 20022
- Account-to-Account
- Faster Payments
- Direct Debit
- Payment Scheme
- Standards Body
- Confirmation of Payee
created: '2026-07-24'
modified: '2026-07-25'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis: []
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/pay-uk-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/
- type: Standards
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/standards-authority/
- type: StandardsLibrary
  url: https://www.standardssource.com/fps
- type: StandardsSource
  url: https://www.standardssource.com/stn
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/payment-systems/access-to-payment-systems/getting-started/
- type: Blog
  url: https://newseventsinsights.wearepay.uk/
- type: Support
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/contact-us/
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/legal/
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/privacy/
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/pay-uk-conformance.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/pay-uk-llms.txt
- type: Contact
  url: https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/overlay-services/confirmation-of-payee/
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com