What is a continuous payment authority and how do I cancel one?

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A continuous payment authority is a common but often misunderstood payment mechanism, distinct from a standard Direct Debit, that gives a company standing permission to charge your card repeatedly for things like subscriptions, gym memberships, trial offers, or (historically, and more controversially) payday loan repayments. **How a CPA differs from a Direct Debit** A Direct Debit is governed by the Direct Debit Guarantee scheme, giving strong statutory protections including automatic refunds for errors and easy cancellation directly through your bank. A CPA is a card-based arrangement with fewer formal statutory protections, historically making it harder for consumers to stop payments, since some merchants would attempt to continue collecting even after a consumer tried to cancel with the merchant directly. **Your right to cancel directly with your bank** Under FCA rules and payment services regulations, you have the right to cancel a continuous payment authority directly with your bank or card provider at any time, and the bank must act on this instruction -- you do NOT need to go through the merchant first, and the bank cannot insist you resolve it with the company before stopping future payments. This is an important right, since some merchants historically made cancellation deliberately difficult. **How to cancel a CPA with your bank** Contact your bank or card provider (by phone, in branch, or sometimes via online/app banking) and explicitly ask them to cancel the continuous payment authority for that specific merchant -- be clear that you are invoking your right to stop future payments, since asking to simply "block a payment" might not be interpreted the same way by frontline bank staff. **What happens to your relationship with the merchant** Cancelling the CPA with your bank stops future payments being taken, but it does not automatically cancel your underlying contract or subscription with the merchant -- you may still owe money under the terms of your agreement, and the merchant could pursue you through other means (an invoice, debt collection, or even legal action) if you continue using a service without paying through an alternative method. Always formally cancel with the merchant as well where you intend to stop using their service. **Common uses of CPAs today** Subscription services (streaming, software, gym memberships) frequently use CPAs or similar card-based recurring billing rather than Direct Debit, since it is simpler for the merchant to set up and does not require your bank details in the same way. Some short-term lenders historically used CPAs to collect loan repayments, which led to specific FCA rules limiting how many times and how much a lender can attempt to collect via CPA in a given period. **If your bank refuses or delays cancelling** If your bank does not act promptly on a clear CPA cancellation instruction, or continues allowing payments after you have cancelled, you can raise a formal complaint with the bank, and if unresolved, escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service -- banks are expected to comply with cancellation requests and can be required to refund any payments taken after a valid cancellation instruction was given. **Practical tip** Keep a written record (email, secure message, or note of a phone call with date, time, and staff member's name) whenever you cancel a CPA with your bank, since this evidence is valuable if a dispute arises later about whether a valid cancellation instruction was actually given.

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