Variable Recurring Payments (VRP)
A UK open banking feature that gives a payment provider a standing mandate to pull varying amounts within agreed limits.
An ordinary open banking payment needs the customer to approve every single transfer in their banking app. A VRP is approved once, with caps per payment, per period and on the mandate's lifetime — after that the provider can initiate payments on its own. The customer can revoke the mandate directly with their bank, without asking the merchant's permission.
The Competition and Markets Authority required the nine largest UK banks to support VRP for sweeping — moving money between a customer's own accounts — from 2022. Commercial VRP for paying merchants has moved more slowly, mostly because nobody could agree on who carries the liability when something goes wrong. The targets it is aimed at are Direct Debit and stored cards.