Of the methods where your customer decides when to pay, card is paid on or before the due date most often (65.1% of the time on Adfin), then pay by bank (62.0%), then bank transfer (57.9%). Direct debit can't be judged on the same test, because you collect it on a date you set and it reaches you a few days later, but 97.0% of direct debit collections succeed first time. If on-time payment is the goal, the bigger change is moving a client from deciding when to pay to a mandate.
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The short version
- On Adfin, card is paid by the due date 65.1% of the time, pay by bank 62.0%, bank transfer 57.9%.
- Within a single business the gaps shrink to under 1.5%.
- Direct debit can't be measured on the same test because it settles after the collection date.
- 97.0% of direct debit collections succeed first time.
- Moving a late payer onto a mandate tends to help more than changing their method.
How card, pay by bank and bank transfer compare
With these three, your customer chooses when to pay, and your due date is the deadline they're working to. That's why they're fair to compare. Across paid invoices on Adfin over a 26-month period, this is the share paid on or before the due date:
| Method | Paid on or before the due date |
|---|---|
| Card | 65.1% |
| Pay by bank (open banking) | 62.0% |
| Bank transfer | 57.9% |
Read the gaps with care. When you compare methods within a single business's own clients, holding its terms and client list steady, the gaps between methods shrink to under 1.5%. Most of the pooled gap reflects which businesses offer which methods, and which of their clients use them. A business that sends a pay by bank link is often a different kind of business from one that prints its bank details at the foot of a PDF.
The figures also come from businesses collecting through Adfin, many of them small practices billing modest recurring fees (half the invoices are under £180), so your own clients won't necessarily behave the same way.
Why direct debit needs a different measure
On-time tests measure a customer's decision to pay. A direct debit doesn't involve one. Your customer agreed once, you tell them the amount and date in advance, and you collect on the date you chose.
If you collect on the due date, the money reaches your account a few days later, once your provider pays it out. So against the date on the invoice, almost every direct debit looks late, even though nothing went wrong and the customer did nothing to delay it. Putting direct debit in the same table as card would compare a settlement timetable with customer behaviour.
The measure that fits direct debit is whether the money arrives. In the same data, 97.0% of direct debit collections succeed on the first attempt and 98.7% are collected in the end, which is a good deal more certain than waiting on a decision, even with a few days of settlement time.
What each method asks of your customer
Set the percentages aside and the methods differ in something simpler: how much work stands between your customer wanting to pay and having paid.
- Direct debit takes the decision away. Nothing has to reach the top of their to-do list on a particular morning, so what's left to go wrong is the money not being there or a cancelled mandate.
- Card and pay by bank leave the decision with your customer but remove almost all the effort. The amount and reference are filled in, and paying takes a phone and a few seconds.
- A bank transfer leaves the decision with them and adds a task: open the banking app, add you as a payee, copy a sort code, account number and reference, and check it all. That competes with everything else in their week.
The order of the on-time figures follows that list. Method seems to matter more for whether the due date is missed than for how late a payment then is: among late payments, the typical delay was 8 days for card and pay by bank and 10 days for bank transfer.
How to compare methods in your own book
You can run the same comparison on your own clients with what's already in your accounting system.
- Split last year's paid invoices by payment method, keeping direct debit in a column of its own.
- For card, pay by bank and bank transfer, compare each payment date with the due date and work out the share paid on time.
- For direct debit, look at the share collected first time, the share collected in the end, and how many mandates were cancelled.
- Treat a difference of a percent or two between card and transfer as normal variation, especially on a few hundred invoices.
- Check your due dates before blaming a method. A due date that falls on a weekend, or after the client's payment run, can cost you more than the choice of method.
If one client is late most months, a change of method on its own won't necessarily fix it. Moving them onto a mandate tends to hold better, and Adfin lets you send a payment link for the overdue invoice and offer direct debit for future ones from the same place. For clients who stay on links, its Customer Agents can chase on a schedule you set, over email, SMS or WhatsApp, so a missed due date doesn't wait for someone to notice.
Common questions
Which payment method gets paid on time most often? Of the methods your customer starts, card leads at 65.1% paid on or before the due date on Adfin, then pay by bank at 62.0% and bank transfer at 57.9%.
Why isn't direct debit in the on-time comparison? Because you collect it on a date you set and it settles a few days after, so it measures the Bacs cycle and not your customer's behaviour.
Does direct debit get you paid more reliably? On the measure that fits it, yes: 97.0% of collections on Adfin succeed first time and 98.7% are collected in the end.
Is bank transfer the worst option for getting paid on time? It's lowest when all businesses are pooled, but within a single business's own clients the gap almost disappears, so it mainly reflects which businesses rely on transfers.
Will moving a client from bank transfer to card get them paying on time? Not on its own, going by this data. It's still worth doing because it removes work for your client, but a mandate is the bigger change.
What should I measure instead of an average days late? Two things kept apart: the share of customer-paid invoices arriving by the due date, and for direct debit, first-time success, eventual collection and cancelled mandates.
Sources
- Bacs - Direct Debit, getting started (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.bacs.co.uk/bacs-schemes/getting-started/direct-debit/
- Adfin - When will I receive my payout (accurate as of October 2026) https://support.adfin.com/en/articles/10199985-when-will-i-receive-my-payout
- Adfin - Accept payments (accurate as of October 2026) https://www.adfin.com/accept-payments
