Four in Ten UK Businesses Left Waiting for Payment Confirmation

30 OCTOBER 2026, LONDON: UK businesses are still struggling with one of the most fundamental parts of financial management: knowing when money has arrived, even as they adopt increasingly sophisticated payment technology, shows new research.

The study reveals that 42% of UK businesses experienced a delay in confirming whether a customer or client payment had arrived during the past 12 months, making it the most common payment problem identified by the study.

The problem extends beyond incoming payments, with the research showing that two in five businesses (40%) experienced an approved payout being delayed, including refunds, supplier payments, claims, salary payments and deposit returns. Meanwhile, 39% said employees had to trace, compare or re-enter payment information across multiple systems.

The findings have been published in the new report, ‘The Open Banking Data and Payments Automation Landscape’, commissioned by Finexer, an FCA-authorised Open Banking infrastructure platform built for mid-market B2B platforms.

Ravi Ranjan, Co-Founder and CEO of Finexer, said: “If a business has to investigate whether a payment has arrived, something in the payment process isn’t working. Finance teams should be able to see when money arrives and know where an approved payment is in the process. Instead, too many are still checking different systems, tracing transactions and moving information between platforms just to build a clear picture of what has been paid and what hasn’t. That isn’t just an inconvenience, it creates more work for finance teams and makes something as fundamental as payment visibility unnecessarily difficult.”

Yet digital payment technology is already widely adopted among UK businesses.

Finexer’s research found almost two-thirds (62%) already use Pay by Bank, over half (55%) use account ownership verification and half (50%) use bank data access and 48% use automated transaction matching.

However, adoption does not necessarily mean those technologies are joined up. More than a third of UK businesses (38%) rely on three or more separate systems or providers to manage their banking and payment workflows.

The findings suggest this fragmentation could be contributing to businesses’ payment visibility problems. When incoming payments, payouts, bank data, account verification and reconciliation sit across different systems, finance teams can be left bridging the gaps, checking payment statuses, comparing records and moving information between platforms.

Businesses can therefore have technology for collecting payments, accessing banking data, verifying accounts, making payouts and reconciling transactions, while still relying on employees to connect the information held across those systems.

Open Banking provides an opportunity to reduce that fragmentation by enabling financial platforms to connect permissioned banking data and account-to-account payments directly into the software businesses already use. Bringing bank data, payment initiation and verification together can give businesses greater visibility over money moving in and out without requiring employees to manually piece together the payment trail.

Ranjan added, “Businesses have spent years adding new technology to collect payments, access banking data, make payouts and reconcile transactions, but more technology doesn’t automatically mean better visibility. If those capabilities sit across multiple disconnected systems, finance teams are still left connecting the dots, chasing confirmation and trying to build a reliable picture of money moving in and out.”

“The goal should be simple: connect the technology, remove the gaps and give businesses a single view of their payments. Finance teams shouldn’t have to investigate whether a payment has arrived; the technology should already know,” concluded Ranjan.

About Finexer: Finexer is a UK Open Banking infrastructure provider authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (FRN 925695) as an Authorised Payment Institution. The company enables fintech and SaaS platforms to integrate verified financial data and account-to-account payments through a single API, covering payments, financial data access and financial verification.

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