# Trustly — Payment

Trustly by Trustly Group AB holds a panel rating of 1.5/5 from 6 AI judges (category median 2/5), as of 2026-10-15. Provenance: provenance unknown; sovereignty: not determined.

- Vendor: Trustly Group AB (https://trustly.com)
- Category: [Payment](https://whats-best.ai/software/payment.md)
- Provenance (editorial classification): provenance unknown
- Canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/trustly
- Alternatives: https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/trustly/alternatives ([markdown](https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/trustly/alternatives.md))
- Data as of: 2026-10-21 · evaluated 2026-10-15 · oldest source captured 2026-10-13

**AI-generated.** Every score, rationale and verdict here is written by a panel of AI judges from public evidence — an analysis, not a hands-on test. Every fact quotes the vendor page it was read from. No score can be bought. How scores are made: https://whats-best.ai/methodology

## At a glance

- Vendor: Trustly Group AB
- Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
- Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
- Free plan: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026

## The panel's verdict

Trustly's captured pages describe a single-rail payment product — direct bank transfer marketed across 33+ markets — with the only named country list, the United Kingdom, Guernsey, Jersey and Gibraltar, attached to a BACS Direct Debit recurring flow built for North American merchants. The bench's scoring is uneven. Recurring billing is the strongest category at 5-6, crediting documented mandates, mandatory pre-capture notification emails, retries capped at two within a 30-day window, BACS failure reason codes, CSV-over-SFTP mandate import and an 80% recovery claim. Settlement and reconciliation follows at 4-6, on daily reports by 10:00 AM Eastern and a JSON-RPC API with sandbox and event notifications. The weakest readings are pricing transparency, a flat 0 with no published rate or fee, and sovereignty at 0-1, where contracting jurisdiction, ownership, data residency and subprocessors are recorded as unknown and the only entity named with a register number is San Francisco-based Trustly, Inc. (NMLS 2463855). Checkout and SCA spans 2-4: the finance lead credited bank-side verification and outcome claims, while the others found no fraud rules or SCA exemption handling exposed to the merchant.

**Speaks for it:**
- Recurring billing scored 5-6 — BACS Direct Debit mandates with mandatory pre-notification emails and retries capped at two within a 30-day window.
- Funding and Settlement Reconciliation reports are delivered daily by 10:00 AM Eastern via portal or SFTP, in a fixed format with sequence numbers and trail totals.
- A JSON-RPC API is documented with a sandbox, dev docs and mandatory event notifications for mandate and transaction status.
- Mandate import runs via CSV over SFTP, alongside an 80% recovery claim on failed recurring payments and machine-learned collection-day prediction.
- The service level agreement commits to 99.9% monthly uptime with tiered response times from 60 minutes for critical errors.

**Held against it:**
- No public pricing of any kind — pricing transparency scored 0-0 with every rate a sales conversation.
- Payment methods scored 1-2, with direct bank transfer the only documented method family and no per-country method or currency list.
- Sovereignty scored 0-1, with contracting jurisdiction, ownership, data residency and subprocessor exposure recorded as unknown.
- The only entity named with a licence number is US-based Trustly, Inc. (NMLS 2463855); we found no public information on an EU entity, its supervisor or register number.
- Checkout and SCA scored 2-4, with a 0.012% fraud claim given as a marketing figure and no fraud rules, risk scores or SCA exemption handling a merchant can inspect.

**Best for:**
- You collect recurring subscription payments from UK consumer bank accounts and want a documented BACS Direct Debit flow with CSV mandate import and retry handling.
- Your finance team depends on daily fixed-format reconciliation and funding reports tied batch-by-batch to funds transferred to your bank.
- Your engineers want a JSON-RPC API published with sandbox, dev docs and event notifications for mandate and transaction status.

**Avoid if:**
- You need a published price before talking to sales — pricing transparency scored 0 with no variation.
- You accept cards, wallets or SEPA Direct Debit today — payment methods scored 1-2 with direct bank transfer the only documented method family.
- You must name an EU regulated entity, its supervisor and a subprocessor list in your own compliance file before signing.
- You bill continental subscribers on SEPA mandates — the documented recurring flow's supported geographies are the United Kingdom, Guernsey, Jersey and Gibraltar.

## Scores by judge and criterion

Scores out of 5, each judge scoring independently against the published rubric (v1). "n/r" = not rated: the vendor publishes no price.

| Criterion | The Finance Lead | The E-Commerce Lead | The SaaS Founder | The Payments Engineer | The Compliance Officer | The Skeptic |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Payment methods & local coverage | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 0.5/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 |
| Checkout, SCA & fraud | 2/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 |
| Subscriptions & recurring payments | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 3/5 | 2.5/5 |
| Settlement, reconciliation & API | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2.5/5 | 3/5 | 2.5/5 | 2/5 |
| Licence, risk & account terms | 1.5/5 | 1/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1/5 |
| European sovereignty | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 | 0/5 | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 |
| Pricing transparency | 0/5 | 0/5 | 0/5 | 0/5 | 0/5 | 0/5 |
| **Weighted verdict** | **1.5/5** | **1/5** | **1.5/5** | **2/5** | **1/5** | **1/5** |

### The judges

- **The Finance Lead** (v1.0): Closes the month and owns the cash position. Wants payouts on a stated schedule, fees itemised per transaction rather than netted into a lump, reports that match the bank statement, and a rolling reserve written into the contract with a limit rather than discovered on a Tuesday.
- **The E-Commerce Lead** (v1.0): Sells to customers in eight EU countries and is measured on conversion. Wants the local methods each market actually uses named per country, a checkout that stays on her domain, and 3-D Secure that challenges only when it must. Reads "100+ payment methods" as a count, not a list.
- **The SaaS Founder** (v1.0): Runs a B2B subscription business where every failed renewal is churn nobody chose. Wants SEPA mandates as well as cards, dunning that recovers, proration that is correct, and the payment tokens exportable — because a provider that keeps the tokens keeps the customer base hostage.
- **The Payments Engineer** (v1.0): Integrates the provider and gets paged when webhooks stop arriving. Wants a versioned API with idempotency keys, a test mode that behaves like production, the PCI scope of each integration stated, and a status page that admits incidents rather than a green dot.
- **The Compliance Officer** (v1.0): Handles data protection and outsourcing risk, and wants the regulated entity named with its supervisor and register number, not "licensed in Europe". Asks where transaction and cardholder data are processed, who the subprocessors are, and where the provider acts as controller rather than processor.
- **The Skeptic** (v1.0): Knows the headline rate covers the cheapest card in the cheapest country. Reads for the currency conversion markup, the chargeback fee, the payout delay and the clause that lets the provider freeze funds without a reason — and treats a missing licence number as an answer.

## European sovereignty — proven facts

Built only from facts on the vendor's own pages; a dimension we could not prove is left open, never scored as zero. Headline: not determined.

| Dimension | Finding | Points | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Not determined | — | — |
| Ownership | Not determined | — | — |
| Data residency | Not determined | — | — |
| Subprocessors | Not determined | — | — |

## Key facts

Each fact is the vendor's own statement, cited to the source page it was read from ([S*n*] → Sources).

**Compliance**
- CCPA notice: yes · provisions do not apply to personal information handled by financial institutions pursuant to federal law such as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act [S6]
- GDPR telephone restriction: yes [S3]
- Nevada do not call: yes [S6]
- Penetration testing: SOC 2 · ISO 27001 · annual [S1]
- Vermont data disclosure: yes [S6]

**Integrations**
- Direct API: JSON-RPC · 33 · yes · yes [S1]
- Docs: Technical documentation available (Trustly Docs) [S2]
- EU API endpoints: European API · Notifications · Deposit · Refund/Cancel [S3]
- Event notifications required: mandate and transaction status updates · yes [S3]
- Psp integration: yes [S1]
- Report portal download: Reports downloadable from the Merchant portal. [S4]
- Report sftp delivery: Reports available on SFTP site hosted by Trustly; access via integration team. [S4]

**Legal**
- Entity: Trustly Payments in North Carolina · Trustly, Inc. [S7]
- Headquarters address: 535 Mission St Floor 18, Office 1825, CA 94105 [S6]
- Nmls id: 2463855 [S7]
- Nmls number: 2463855 [S6]
- Regulatory page date: As of August 2026 [S6]
- US money transmitter licenses: AKMT-017551 · 1006 · MT-2002441 · FT230000479 · 132291 · 500329 · 40472 · MT-2463855 · MTR2463855 [S6]
- US money transmitter licenses 2: 2024-0140 · MTL-369 · MT.0000279 · MT.0000500 · SC857310 · 2463855 · MT0025391 · MO-25-9613 · MN-MT-2463855 · MT2463855 · MT2463855 [S6]
- US money transmitter licenses 3: OHMT 283 · 3572 · 2463855 · 2406161 · MT104816 · 110849 · 20244799CT · 2463855.MT · 2463855MT · 223828 [S6]

**Product**
- Account expiry: No expiry dates; verified bank accounts reduce errors [S2]
- Alternative US canada flow: US/Canada recurring debits use Trustly Pay with paymentType 'Deferred' instead [S3]
- Azura engine: Trustly Azura data engine uses machine learning to predict best collection day [S2]
- Azura module: Trustly Azura data engine [S1]
- Bacs cycle length: 5 [S3]
- Bank connection setup: Setup automated by connecting directly to user's bank account [S2]
- Cancellation cutoff time: 20:30 [S3]
- Case study metrics: 30 · 7.8 [S1]
- Conversion claim: 98 [S1]
- Data services module: Data Services with Open Banking and KYC [S1]
- Deposit module: Deposit [S1]
- Eid verification: User verification via bank app or eID [S2]
- End to end management: yes [S1]
- Experience years: 16 [S1]
- Failed payment recovery: recovery rate for failed recurring payments · 80 [S2]
- Failure reason codes: ARUCS · AWACS · ARUDD · ADDACS · AUDDIS · DDIC [S3]
- Failure reduction: 50% reduction in payment failures [S2]
- Fixed payment auto capture: yes [S3]
- Fixed payment lead time: 5 [S3]
- Fraud rate claim: 0.012 [S1]
- Funding report: Funding Report lists all funds transferred (credits and debits) and transactions in batches sent to the merchant's bank account for the reporting period. [S4]
- Intelligent charging: AI-powered Intelligent Charging predicts best collection day to avoid failures [S2]
- Lifetime value: 2x higher lifetime value [S2]
- Mandate import: CSV via SFTP · yes [S3]
- Mandatory customer fields: email · physical_address [S3]
- Merchant reference rules: yes · 13 · 6 · yes [S3]
- No manual input: no [S2]
- Parent transaction id: Parent Transaction ID references the original transaction, e.g. authorization parent of a capture [S5]
- Pay by bank positioning: Pay by Bank leader connecting brands and consumers [S1]
- Payment module: Direct bank transfer payments [S1]
- Payment schedule metadata required: yes [S3]
- Payment success rate: payment success rate · 99.6 [S2]
- Payout instant cross border: yes · yes · yes [S1]
- Payout module: Payout across Europe [S1]
- Platform architecture: Uses Trustly European platform architecture with distinct endpoints and authentication flows [S3]
- Products listed: Trustly Pay · Trustly Payouts · Trustly Connect · Trustly ID · Trustly Insights [S6]
- Reconciliation report purpose: all transactions created during the reporting period · yes [S5]
- Recurring overview: Recurring payments collected directly from customers' verified bank accounts [S2]
- Recurring payments description: Recurring Payments lets North American merchants process subscriptions from UK consumer bank accounts via the UK BACS Direct Debit network [S3]
- Recurring payments module: Recurring Payments [S1]
- Report delivery schedule: Reports available daily by 10:00 AM Eastern Time. [S4]
- Report file sequence: yes [S5]
- Report generation portal: Merchant Portal > Reports > Reconciliation & Funding [S5]
- Report header fields: P11KREC · Record Type Indicator · Magic · Version · Start Date · End Date · Merchant ID · Sequence [S5]
- Report max period days: 31 [S5]
- Report output options: yes · yes [S5]
- Report record types: Header (H) · Transaction Record (T) · Trail (L) [S5]
- Report trail summary: total number of transactions · total amount [S5]
- Report utc window: 12:00 PM to 11:59 AM · UTC [S5]
- Rtp settlement reconciliation report: RTP Settlement Reconciliation contains only Real-Time Payment (RTP) transactions for the specific period; available only to merchants using RTP functionality. [S4]
- Scheduled downtime notice: 12:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. Pacific Time · 8 · 4 [S7]
- Settlement reconciliation report: Settlement Reconciliation contains all transactions created during the reporting period. [S4]
- Setup speed: 3x faster setup than industry standard [S2]
- SLA effective date: 2021-07-04 [S7]
- SLA uptime: 99.9 [S7]
- Solutions listed: Subscription & Bill Pay · eCommerce · Financial Services · Gaming · Consumer Onboarding · Payment Initiation · Risk Management [S6]
- Supported geographies: GB · GG · JE · GI [S3]
- Transactions annual: 275000000 [S1]
- Variable payment mandate confirmation: yes [S3]
- Variable payment requirements: yes [S3]

**Support**
- Consumer assistance: 888-334-5528 · https://help.trustly.net/s/contactsupport/consumer [S6]
- Critical response time: critical · 60 minutes [S7]
- Docs status page: yes · yes · yes · yes [S1]
- Low response time: low · 5 days [S7]
- Medium response time: medium · 1 day [S7]

## Questions

### Is Trustly European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where Trustly is based.

### Where does Trustly store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

### Does Trustly have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

### What are the best alternatives to Trustly?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates [Adyen (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/adyen), [Mollie (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/mollie) and [Checkout.com (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/checkout-com) highest among the other 30 Payment products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is [Adyen](https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/adyen) (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: [how scores are made](https://whats-best.ai/methodology#ordering). The full list, with European products first: [Trustly alternatives](https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/trustly/alternatives).

## What this page leaves out

- We could not confirm any pricing information on the vendor’s own pages as captured, so this page shows none rather than a statement we cannot stand behind.
- 12 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 10 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 3 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 3 support facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 6 of the readings below were written against an earlier fact sheet — a fact has been corrected, added or pulled since. Until the panel next runs on this product you are reading the older judgement.

## Sources

- [S1] Vendor page: https://trustly.com (checked 2026-10-13)
- [S2] Subscriptions & recurring payments — found from sitemap: https://www.trustly.com/products/recurring (checked 2026-10-13)
- [S3] Subscriptions & recurring payments — found from sitemap: https://amer.developers.trustly.com/integrate/accept-payments/recurring-payments (checked 2026-10-13)
- [S4] Settlement, reconciliation & API — found from sitemap: https://amer.developers.trustly.com/integrate/manage-your-integration/reports-and-reconciliation (checked 2026-10-13)
- [S5] Settlement, reconciliation & API — found from sitemap: https://amer.developers.trustly.com/integrate/manage-your-integration/reports-and-reconciliation/reconciliation-report (checked 2026-10-13)
- [S6] Licence, risk & account terms — found from sitemap: https://www.trustly.com/en-ca/us-regulatory-licenses (checked 2026-10-13)
- [S7] Licence, risk & account terms — found from sitemap: https://www.trustly.com/en-ca/service-level-agreement (checked 2026-10-13)

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Cite as: whats-best.ai, "Trustly — Payment", AI panel analysis, as of 2026-10-21. https://whats-best.ai/software/payment/trustly

Corrections: https://whats-best.ai/correct/727?target=page