Yaspa Review
6.4/10Pay-by-bank with an identity engine inside the deposit: FCA-regulated A2A for iGaming, strongest on Safer Gambling signals, quietest on numbers.
Our read
The UK plus 18 European markets and a young US rail set, with no bank count, currency list, or method figure published anywhere, the weakest disclosure among the segment's five vendors.
Instant payouts over FPS, SEPA Instant, and US RTP are the core product, and Guaranteed ACH answers the US returns objection, though the liability mechanics behind the guarantee stay undisclosed.
An FCA payment institution since 2019 with a substantive Safer Gambling layer, marked down for a US posture of Delaware entity plus NMLS ID and an unexplained post-Brexit EEA basis.
An ex-Worldpay CTO founder, a genuine 2025-2026 award run, and 15-to-70 headcount growth in 18 months, set against a mid-tier client roster that lives entirely on vendor channels.
The identity engine returns signals inside the payment call itself, and PaymentIQ (2022) plus Paysecure (2026) provide orchestrator distribution without a direct build.
No pricing is published anywhere (Jul 2026), and the US claim of transparent fees arrives without a single number attached.
Methodology. Our own score, a weighted average of six dimensions, tilted toward coverage and settlement. The open-banking weighting puts coverage first at 0.24 and settlement next at 0.22, which lands on Yaspa's weakest and strongest dimensions in that order, so the unpublished bank and currency numbers drag the overall to 6.4 even though compliance and integration grade a point and a half higher. Read the full methodology
- Identity runs inside the payment: affordability, AML risk, and financial-vulnerability signals return in under 10 seconds (the vendor's claim) during the deposit, validated externally by the EGR B2B 2026 double win for AI Solutions Provider and Safer Gambling Supplier.
- One of very few open-banking vendors actually shipping US pay-by-bank for gaming, with Guaranteed ACH deposits and RTP instant payouts live-marketed since H2 2025 and a gambling-native lead investor in Discerning Capital.
- Gambling-first by design: a Safer Gambling platform with an Innovate UK grant (2024), G2E and SBC circuit presence, and an unmatched-for-its-size 2025-2026 award run including SBC Awards Europe Best Payment Solution (May 2026).
- FCA-authorized payment institution since 2019, in the first open-banking PI cohort, founded by James Neville, the former CTO of Worldpay and Just Eat.
- Reachable without a direct build through PaymentIQ, where it has been listed since May 2022, and Paysecure's 500-connection orchestration hub since April 2026.
- The thinnest quantitative disclosure in the segment: no connected-bank count, no currency list, no volume or TPV figure anywhere, and no published pricing, while direct competitors publish 3,800+ banks or $100B+ in processed volume.
- The US proposition runs ahead of its evidence: a Delaware entity and NMLS ID 2771164 with no state money-transmitter licenses or gaming vendor approvals disclosed, zero named US clients a year into the push, and the contractual mechanics of the guaranteed ACH return liability undisclosed on public pages.
- The reference base is mid-tier and vendor-published: Playbook Engineering, Casino Lugano, Soft2Bet, White Hat Gaming, and Delasport with no tier-1 operator anywhere, and the strongest single operator name, Novibet, dates to the Citizen era before October 2023.
Mid-size UK and European licensed operators, platform-based brands, and land-based casinos that want instant A2A deposits and payouts with affordability and Safer Gambling signals built into the flow itself.
Operators needing card acquiring, LatAm or APAC rails, or live crypto, tier-1 brands that require proven scale references and published coverage numbers, and US-regulated buyers who need a disclosed state licensing footprint on day one.
Markets & licensing
Yaspa's home credential is clean: Yaspa Limited is an FCA-authorized payment institution, reference 826720, since 2019, stated in the site footer and listed in the UK open-banking provider directory. Everything beyond the UK gets thinner. The 18 European markets on the support portal rest on a regulatory basis the site never explains post-Brexit, and the US runs on a Delaware entity with NMLS ID 2771164, no state money-transmitter licenses, and no state gaming vendor approvals disclosed as of July 2026.
Guaranteed ACH deposits and RTP instant payouts have been live-marketed since H2 2025, with a G2E Las Vegas booth (October 2025), an Atlanta operation, and a CRO hired from the Cybersource-Visa-Paysafe track to sell them. The paper trail behind that is a Delaware incorporation and NMLS ID 2771164, and it stops there: no state money-transmitter licenses are disclosed, no state gaming vendor registrations were found, and not a single US client is named. The targeted verticals are online gaming, skill-based gaming, DFS, and prediction markets. If the US is your market, ask Yaspa directly how money transmission is structured in each of your states before contracting, because the site does not say.
This is where the case is strongest. Yaspa Limited has held FCA payment institution authorization 826720 since 2019, putting it in the first open-banking PI cohort, and the affordability, AML, and vulnerability signals it returns inside the deposit flow line up with where UK regulatory expectations have been heading. The homepage shows the banks UK players actually use, from Monzo and Revolut to Barclays and HSBC, and the omnichannel flows extend to land-based floors. The thing a UK buyer cannot get from public pages is a bank count, a currency list, or a price.
- UK (FCA) payment institutionUnited Kingdom
- Authorized PI for open-banking payment services, held by Yaspa Limited · FRN 826720 · authorized 2019-08-05 · register-confirmed 2026-07-04
- US NMLS registrationUnited States
- Yaspa Inc. (Delaware), with no state MTLs or gaming vendor approvals disclosed · NMLS ID 2771164 on the yaspa.com/us footer
- EU/EEA coverage18 European markets
- Payments marketed across the EEA with the post-Brexit regulatory basis undisclosed on-site · Country list on support.yaspa.com · no own EU PI or EMI found as of Jul 2026
Licensing tier: Mid-tier on verified paper. One clean FCA permission is solid for a UK-first A2A vendor, but peers in this segment hold EU institutions or US state license stacks, and Yaspa discloses neither.
The European list comes from the vendor's own support portal, and the US entry means live-marketed products rather than a licensed state footprint.
No restricted-market list is published. The posture targets licensed, regulated operators, without a formal acceptance policy on the record.
Methods & rails
What you can reach
A2A rails
Payout rails
Processing features
Integrations & engineering
One contract and one API instead of a separate deal per studio, feed, or PSP. Here's what connects, how fast, and on what stack.
One integration covers payments and identity together: the API initiates pay-by-bank transactions and returns account-ownership, affordability, AML-risk, and vulnerability signals from the same consented bank-data session, with hosted flows available for faster starts. Rails are selected per market, meaning UK Faster Payments at home, SEPA and SEPA Instant across the 18 European markets, and Same-Day ACH with RTP payouts in the US, where FedNow is also named. Virtual accounts handle segregation and reconciliation, and the closed loop ties payouts to the verified deposit account. Operators already running PaymentIQ or Paysecure can switch Yaspa on inside their existing cashier instead of integrating directly.
Not published. The realistic paths are a direct REST integration scoped through the support.yaspa.com portal, or enabling Yaspa inside PaymentIQ or Paysecure if you already run either.
Products & tools
Six products hang off one A2A core: Intelligent Payments carries the identity signals, Instant Payments and Instant Payouts move the money, Account Verification and Virtual Accounts handle ownership and reconciliation, and Guaranteed Payments takes the same stack to US ACH.
Intelligent Payments
The flagship and the reason Yaspa exists as a distinct proposition: a pay-by-bank transaction and an AI-driven customer assessment in a single flow, returning affordability, AML risk, and financial-vulnerability signals in under 10 seconds by the vendor's clock, before funds enter play.
- Affordability, AML risk, and vulnerability assessment inside the deposit flow, claimed in under 10 seconds (vendor-stated, 2026)
- Signals derive from consented real-time bank data instead of credit-bureau lookups
- Safer Gambling platform backed by an Innovate UK grant (2024)
- EGR B2B 2026 double win: AI Solutions Provider and Safer Gambling Supplier (June 2026)
- Positioned for UK affordability-check expectations, with checks run before money lands
Instant Payments & Instant Payouts
The money movement layer: pay-by-bank deposits settling in real time (the vendor claims 36x faster than cards) and instant player payouts over UK Faster Payments, SEPA Instant, and US RTP, running in a closed loop against the verified account.
- Real-time A2A deposits settling straight into the merchant account
- Instant payouts for winnings, refunds, and cross-border, marketed as settling in moments (Jul 2026)
- Closed-loop flow: verify the account, deposit from it, pay out to the same verified account
- Rails: UK Faster Payments, SEPA and SEPA Instant, US Same-Day ACH and RTP, with FedNow named on the US pages
- Omnichannel flows for web, in-store, and the casino floor
Guaranteed Payments (US)
The US product: guaranteed deposits over Same-Day ACH from checking and savings accounts, with live balance checks and per-transaction risk analysis deciding approvals, one-time verification then single-click repeat deposits, and protection against ACH returns on approved transactions.
- Guaranteed outcomes against ACH returns on approved deposits (vendor language, Jul 2026)
- Real-time balance check and risk analysis per transaction before approval
- One-time account verification, then single-click repeat deposits
- Near-100% deposit acceptance claimed in vendor PR (September 2025)
- No interchange or return fees per the vendor's fee-structure claim
- Instant payouts over RTP alongside, with FedNow also named
Account Verification & Virtual Accounts
The supporting layer: bank-account ownership and customer verification in seconds, described with bank-grade biometric language on the iGaming page, plus virtual IBANs issued on demand for segregation and reconciliation.
- Bank-account ownership verification in seconds
- Customer verification riding the bank's own authentication
- VIBANs on demand for per-brand or per-market reconciliation
- Feeds the closed-loop deposit and payout flow
On the record
The history that matters: the milestones, the scale, the awards, and who runs it.
Yaspa started in London in 2017 as Citizen, founded by James Neville, previously CTO of both Worldpay and Just Eat, with Dr Toby Sucharov as technical co-founder. It joined the first cohort of open-banking providers authorized as FCA payment institutions in 2019, took an early Metavallon round in 2018 and SGH Capital money in 2020, and renamed to Yaspa in October 2023 after concluding the Citizen name was commercially and SEO unworkable. Since then the bet has been America: a $12M round led by gambling-specialist Discerning Capital in July 2025, an Atlanta operation, an NMLS registration, and Guaranteed ACH shipping in H2 2025, while headcount grew from 15 to about 70 in 18 months and CB Insights placed the company on its 2025 Fintech 100 list.
Brands & clients on the platform
Corporate
Leadership
Milestones
- 2017
Founded in London as Citizen by James Neville (ex-Worldpay and Just Eat CTO) and Dr Toby Sucharov.
- 2019
Authorized by the FCA as a payment institution, FRN 826720, among the first open-banking PIs.
- 2022
Goes live on PaymentIQ (May) and wins at the Open Banking Expo Awards, still under the Citizen name.
- 2023
Rebrands to Yaspa on October 26, a name built from 'pay' and 'ASAP', and expands across Europe.
- 2024
Wins an Innovate UK grant for its Safer Gambling platform.
- 2025
Raises $12M led by Discerning Capital (July 2), opens in Atlanta, registers NMLS ID 2771164, ships Guaranteed ACH, and shows at G2E Las Vegas (October, booth 4011).
- 2026
Paysecure partnership (April 2), Best Payment Solution at SBC Awards Europe (May 6), and an EGR B2B double win for AI Solutions Provider and Safer Gambling Supplier (June 3).
Where they're pushing next
- US (Guaranteed ACH and RTP payouts live-marketed from Atlanta, zero named clients yet)
- Netherlands (dedicated Dutch-language site)
- Land-based and omnichannel gambling (web, in-store, and casino-floor flows)
Awards & recognition
Trust signals
The checks an operator runs before signing: incidents, enforcement, ownership, and longevity, from our research.
Yaspa vs alternatives
The same attributes, side by side, from our normalized provider set, useful for seeing where this vendor fits against its peers.
| Attribute | Yaspa | Trustly | Brite Payments | Volt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2017 | 2008 | 2019 | 2019 |
| Team | 70+ | 900+ | 160+ | 202+ |
| US market | Available | Available | Restricted | Restricted |
| Pricing | On request | On request | On request | On request |
| Methods | — | 1+ | 1+ | — |
| Currencies | — | 13+ | — | — |
| EMI / PI licenses | UK | Sweden, UK | Sweden | UK, UK, Poland |
| Settlement | Real-time A2A settlement straight into the merchant account (vendor-stated, Jul 2026) | Merchant settlement terms not published (Jul 2026) | Under 60 seconds median, 24/7/365 including weekends (vendor-stated) | Instant over domestic instant rails, with balances visible in Volt Accounts since Feb 2026 |
| Instant payouts | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The take: Trustly is the incumbent on both sides of the Atlantic, with 12,000 banks and its own state MTL stack, which is everything Yaspa has yet to build. Brite and Volt are nearer in size, and both out-publish Yaspa on coverage while neither returns affordability and vulnerability signals inside the payment the way Intelligent Payments does. Pick Yaspa when the Safer Gambling layer is the point and your markets are the UK and Western Europe, and benchmark against Trustly the moment proven US references matter.
Settlement & commercials
Yaspa prices per deal, so exact figures only arrive at the contract stage. Here's what's on the record about the model and terms.
Per-transaction A2A pricing is the implied model, with no rates on the record anywhere, while the US pages claim 'transparent fees' and 'no interchange or return fees' without a single number.
Nothing is published: no pricing page, no setup fees, no minimums, no contract terms as of Jul 2026. The one commercial signal on the record is the US fee-structure claim of no interchange or return fees on Guaranteed ACH, which describes a structure without giving a rate. Everything else is sales-led.
The deal
Money movement
Onboarding path
- 1Contact sales, since no pricing is published and no self-serve signup exists (Jul 2026)
- 2Contract with Yaspa Limited for the UK and Europe or Yaspa Inc. for the US, asking directly how US money transmission is structured state by state if America is in scope
- 3Map your markets against the 19-country support-portal list and request per-market bank coverage, because no counts are published
- 4Integrate the REST API with hosted flows, or enable Yaspa inside PaymentIQ or Paysecure if you already run either cashier
- 5Configure the identity layer: account verification, affordability, AML-risk, and vulnerability thresholds to match your license's requirements
- 6Go live with instant payouts over FPS, SEPA Instant, or RTP, plus Guaranteed ACH deposits for US players
Support & account management
The service layer operators inherit: availability, the channels support runs on, and language coverage.
Frequently asked
The things operators actually ask before signing.
Is Yaspa actually live in the US?+
The products are live and marketed. The evidence is not there yet. Guaranteed ACH deposits and RTP instant payouts have real product pages, a G2E Las Vegas booth in October 2025, an Atlanta operation, and a CRO hired off a Cybersource-Visa-Paysafe career to sell them. What Yaspa does not have as of July 2026: a single named US client, any state money-transmitter license on the record, or any state gaming vendor approval. The US registration trail is a Delaware entity and NMLS ID 2771164, full stop. A US operator should treat this as an early-vendor pilot and ask in writing how money transmission is structured in each target state.
Who actually bears the risk on Guaranteed ACH?+
Yaspa's own language is guaranteed outcomes for protection against returns on approved transactions, with a real-time balance check and per-transaction risk analysis deciding what gets approved, and vendor PR from September 2025 claims near-100% deposit acceptance. The implication is that Yaspa stands behind approved deposits that later bounce. What no public page spells out is the contract: whether liability shifts fully, at what thresholds, and at what price. Get the mechanics in the term sheet before you build revenue projections on the word guaranteed.
What licenses does Yaspa hold?+
One that you can verify: Yaspa Limited is an FCA-authorized payment institution, reference 826720, since 2019, from the first open-banking PI cohort, and it appears in the UK open-banking provider directory. In the US, Yaspa Inc. is a Delaware company with NMLS ID 2771164 published in the site footer, and nothing further is disclosed. The 18 European markets on the support portal have no disclosed EU permission behind them, and a UK PI does not passport post-Brexit, so ask how EEA service is structured. No gambling licenses are held, and none are required for a payment institution.
Which countries and banks does Yaspa cover?+
The support portal lists 19 markets: the UK plus Ireland, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden, with the US served separately through yaspa.com/us. Bank coverage is the blind spot. The homepage shows UK logos from Monzo and Revolut to Barclays and HSBC, but no connected-bank count exists anywhere, while Brite publishes 3,800+ banks and Trustly 12,000. Currencies are unpublished too, with GBP, EUR, and USD implied by the rails.
What does Yaspa cost, and how do you integrate?+
Pricing is on request: nothing is published as of July 2026, and no setup fees, minimums, or contract terms exist anywhere credible. The US pages claim transparent fees and no interchange or return fees, which describes a fee structure without giving a rate. Integration runs three ways: the direct REST API with hosted flows, documented through the support.yaspa.com portal, or through PaymentIQ (listed since May 2022) or Paysecure (since April 2026) if your cashier already runs on either.