How small businesses cut card fees with pay by bank
Michel Myara is co-founder and product designer at looch, where he designs the tools small businesses use to get paid, manage spend, and run their books.
Most small businesses treat card fees as a fixed cost of doing business. They are not. pay by bank gives you a second way to get paid that often costs less, and your customer still taps a single button to approve it.
This guide explains what pay by bank is, how it works through Request for Payment, and when it beats taking a card.
What pay by bank actually is
pay by bank lets you request money directly from a customer's bank account. With looch Pay, you send a Request for Payment. Your customer sees exactly who is asking, for how much, and approves it from their own banking app. The money moves when they say yes.
There is no card number to key in, no card network in the middle, and nothing sensitive for you to store.
How Request for Payment works
A Request for Payment is a message, not a pull. You ask, the customer approves, the funds move. That order is the whole point:
- You send the request from looch with the amount and a reference.
- Your customer gets a notification and reviews it in their bank or in looch.
- They approve, and the payment settles into your looch account.
Because the customer approves each payment inside their own bank, the request carries clear intent.
You ask, the customer approves, the money moves. That is the entire model.
When pay by bank beats a card
pay by bank is strongest in three situations.
Larger invoices
On a big ticket, a percentage-based card fee is real money. A flat, predictable request can keep more of the sale in your pocket. Check the current numbers on the looch pricing page.
Repeat customers
For clients who pay you again and again, a saved pay by bank flow is faster than re-entering a card every time, and it costs you less on every repeat.
Tight margins
If your margin is thin, the gap between a card rate and pay by bank can be the difference between a job worth taking and one that is not.
When a card still makes sense
Cards are not the enemy. For a first-time customer who wants the familiarity of tapping a card, or for quick in-person sales, taking a card can be the right call. looch lets you do both and decide, per payment, who pays the fee.
Getting started
If you already run on looch, you can send your first Request for Payment today. If you are not set up yet, you can form your business and open an account with looch Start and accept pay by bank payments from day one.
pay by bank will not replace cards for every sale. For the right invoices, it is simply the cheapest button your customer can tap.
