This is a four part series on what’s next to come in Open Banking and currently much talked about: Variable Recurring Payments. As the UK is already in the process of procuring the clearing and settlment layer for instant payments as part of the New Payments Architecture, the NPA (see more below for an explanation of this), now is the time to think twice before extending this procurement to a like for like of the old Direct Debit system. Times change and how businesses collect money and people want to pay their bills has changed too. There’s a chance now to procure a truly fitting, forward looking, real-time and lower cost repeated payment mechanism, and it can be delivered competitively and at lower cost than businesses are paying today.