The UK Government Digital Service has selected Dutch payments company Adyen to process a substantial portion of transactions made through GOV.UK Pay, replacing Stripe for local authorities, police forces and armed-forces units. The change is covered by a three-year contract worth up to £25.3 million.
The agreement includes card processing and a new pay-by-bank option. That service lets a payer move money directly between bank accounts through open-banking infrastructure, avoiding the need to enter card details. GDS said it expects to migrate roughly 1,000 public services and intends to make the transition straightforward while meeting Know Your Customer requirements. It said users should see no loss of functionality or noticeable change during payment.
The scope is significant by organization count, but smaller by transaction share. A tender notice published in February 2025 said the contract covered about 17% of payments handled through GOV.UK Pay while touching more than 70% of participating organizations. The earlier notice put the possible maximum value at £49 million, without guaranteeing transaction volumes. The subsequently reported contract ceiling is £25.3 million.
Adyen will not become the sole processor behind the government platform. GDS will continue using WorldPay for central-government departments, connected organizations and NHS bodies. The division reflects the different groups served through GOV.UK Pay rather than a complete replacement of every existing processing relationship.
GOV.UK Pay was created to spare public bodies from independently procuring and operating online payment systems. Organizations are not charged an additional platform fee; the service passes through transaction costs. Performance figures cited by GDS show that the platform has processed 137.5 million transactions worth about £9.2 billion since its launch in 2016. It supports 1,718 services across 608 organizations, including 662 local-government services and 256 police services.
For participating bodies, the migration combines a supplier change with an expansion of payment methods. GDS described pay by bank as one of the capabilities enabled by the new arrangement. The tender also identified this part of GOV.UK Pay as the only option through which an organization could begin taking payments within one working day. The operational test will be whether that fast onboarding and existing service continuity are maintained as the large group of services transfers to Adyen.\n\nBecause the contract spans many small and specialized public bodies, migration work will include organizational verification as well as technical switching. The reported scope also explains why the proportion of organizations is much larger than the proportion of total payments. Service operators will need clear schedules and support, while GDS will have to monitor transaction continuity across a varied group of users.
