Flywire, the Boston-based company that handles large-value payments such as international tuition, said on August 12, 2026, that it is extending its partnership with Sweden’s Trustly to the US and Canada. Payers will be able to pay straight from their bank accounts, a model known as pay by bank, instead of using a card. The two companies have worked together since 2017, until now mainly in Europe.
The target is the large ticket. Flywire is launching the option in four verticals: education, healthcare, travel, and business-to-business invoicing. In Canada, every vertical except travel is open. Travel is awaiting approval.
A balance check comes before the debit
- The payer picks Trustly Pay by Bank at checkout.
- The payer signs in with their online banking credentials, without typing an account number or a routing number.
- Trustly checks the account balance in real time before submitting the payment.
- The payment runs on the domestic rail: ACH in the US, pre-authorized debit (PAD) in Canada.
- Before authorizing, the payer sees the price and the processing timeline, and can then track the payment.
The balance check is the key piece of engineering. On a debit rail, the originator doesn’t know whether the account has enough money when it submits the payment. An insufficient-funds return can come back several days later, sometimes after the service has already been delivered. Reading the balance at login moves that uncertainty to the front of the process.
Card fees grow with the ticket size
What the four verticals have in common is the size of each payment. International tuition, a hospital bill, or a cruise deposit runs to thousands of dollars, and the merchant fee on a card remains largely a percentage of the amount.
| Feature | Card | Pay by bank (ACH, pre-authorized debit) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to the payee | Mostly a percentage of the amount | Mostly a flat fee per payment, depending on the contract |
| Limit | Authorization limit set by the cardholder’s issuer | Limit set by the payer’s bank, usually higher |
| Funds certainty | Checked at authorization | Checked here by a balance read before submission |
| Disputes | Chargeback process governed by the card network | Debit return process, specific to each national rail |
| Details to enter | Card number, expiration date, security code | None: the payer authenticates with their bank |
In the US, the Durbin Amendment caps debit interchange only at large banks. Credit interchange isn’t capped at all. A university that takes a full year of tuition by card therefore pays a fee with no ceiling in dollar terms. That explains why wires and checks have long dominated these flows, and why a digital alternative has appeal.
North American open banking runs on contracts
Open banking means different things legally on each side of the Atlantic. In the European Economic Area, the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) requires banks to give licensed providers an interface to their customers’ accounts, with no bilateral contract. In North America, access grew out of agreements between banks and data aggregators, plus technical connections negotiated one by one. A provider like Trustly operates there under contract, not under a general right of access.
Flywire by the numbers
Flywire framed the move as a customer-experience play. “Our clients tell us their payers want modern, digital payment experiences that eliminate friction,” said Kate Moran, vice president of global payments at Flywire. Trustly, for its part, said: “We are thrilled to scale our partnership with Flywire to deliver the efficiency of open banking to high-stakes payment sectors.”
No volumes, no targets, and ACH is still slow
The companies disclosed no volumes, no targets, and no switchover date. ACH also remains a deferred rail: the balance check cuts the risk of a return, but it doesn’t make settlement instant. And the temporary carve-out for travel in Canada shows that a debit rail opens one sector at a time, depending on the risk the settlement bank is willing to take.