NatWest Group is introducing Variable Recurring Payments (VRP) as a payment option for businesses and consumers, after signing deals with three payment providers.

NatWest says that it will be the first UK bank to “go beyond” the requirement to provide VRP for sweeping – the automatic transfer of money between two accounts that belong to the same person.

The bank signed agreements with TrueLayer – which launched a VRP API last month – GoCardless, and Crezco.

“VRP has huge potential for both consumers and businesses,” said Daniel Globerson, head of bank APIs at NatWest Group. “As a relationship bank in a digital world, we’re proud to lead the industry by delivering a new payment option through VRP, which will make it easier for businesses and their customers to manage payments for a wide range of services.”

In March, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) clarified the definition of sweeping in a letter to the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE).

The definition stated that the source account needs to be a personal current account (PCA) or business current account (BCA), the destination account is any account into which a domestic payment can be made by the payer’s bank’s direct channel, both accounts are UK sterling accounts, the payments can be an unattended payment, not requiring any interaction by or presence of the payment service user at the time of making the payment, and the transaction is between two accounts belonging to the same person or legal entity.

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