New research finds that despite UK businesses embracing payment technology, many still struggle with payment visibility
23 OCTOBER 2026, LONDON: More than four in ten respondents to a UK business survey reported delays confirming whether customer or client payments had arrived during the past year, highlighting persistent payment-visibility challenges despite the adoption of digital payment technology. The research, commissioned by open banking infrastructure provider Finexer, surveyed 418 senior business leaders at UK organisations employing between 10 and 500 people in August 2026.
According to the Finexer-commissioned study, 42% of respondents experienced a delay confirming whether a customer or client payment had arrived during the previous 12 months, making it the most common payment problem identified among those surveyed.
The challenges extended beyond incoming payments: 40% of respondents reported delays to approved payouts, including refunds, supplier payments, claims, salaries and deposit returns. Meanwhile, 39% said employees had to trace, compare or re-enter payment information across multiple systems.
The findings appear in The Open Banking Data and Payments Automation Landscape, a report commissioned by Finexer, which describes itself as an FCA-authorised open banking infrastructure provider 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.”
Digital payment technology was also widely used among businesses in the survey.
Among surveyed businesses, 62% reported using Pay by Bank, 55% account ownership verification, 50% bank data access and 48% automated transaction matching.
However, adoption does not necessarily mean these technologies are connected. In the survey, 38% of respondents reported relying on three or more separate systems or providers to manage 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 infrastructure may help reduce fragmentation by integrating permissioned bank data, payment initiation and account verification into existing business software. The extent of any improvement depends on integration quality, participating financial institutions and the organisation’s wider payments and reconciliation processes. Such tools do not, by themselves, guarantee the elimination of payment delays.
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.
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finexer@itpr.co.uk
About Finexer - https://finexer.com
Finexer is a UK open banking infrastructure provider offering payment initiation, account information and verification services to businesses and software platforms. The company states that Finexer Ltd is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as an Authorised Payment Institution under firm reference number 925695.
FCA register: https://register.fca.org.uk/
Company website: https://finexer.com/
