How to cancel a subscription through your bank
How to cancel a subscription through your bank in the UK: stop a continuous payment authority or direct debit, and find what to cancel with your assistant.
You can cancel most subscriptions by telling the company, and when that fails or the company makes it hard, you can ask your bank to stop the payment instead. In the UK a bank must stop a payment made under a continuous payment authority when you ask it to, and a direct debit can be cancelled with your bank at any time, so you hold the final say over what leaves your account.
How do I stop a continuous payment authority?
A continuous payment authority is how most card subscriptions are billed. You ask your card provider to cancel it, by phone or through the app, and name the merchant and the card. The bank should stop future payments, and the merchant has no right to keep taking them.
It helps to tell the company as well, so there is a record that you ended the agreement, though your bank does not need the company's permission to act.
How do I cancel a direct debit?
Open your banking app or call your bank, find the direct debit and cancel it, which takes effect straight away. A direct debit is protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee, so if a payment is taken in error you are entitled to a refund from your bank.
Cancelling the debit does not cancel the contract, so tell the company too, or it may chase you for the balance.
What about subscriptions through Apple, Google or PayPal?
These are not cancelled through your bank. Apple and Google subscriptions are managed in the store's settings under subscriptions, and PayPal payments are managed in your PayPal account, under automatic payments. See finding PayPal subscriptions for where to look. Ending the card payment does not end them cleanly, so cancel in the right place first.
See finding PayPal subscriptions.
How do I find out what to cancel?
Ask an assistant. Connect your accounts and cards to Era, then ask Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to list every recurring payment with what it costs a month and a year. The page on seeing every subscription on your card has the steps.
See seeing every subscription on your card. You can also set a rule in plain English so that you are told when a new recurring charge appears, and the assistants share a memory of which ones you decided to keep.
What if a company keeps taking payments after I cancel?
Keep a note of the date you cancelled and ask your bank to stop the payment and to reclaim any taken afterwards. The Financial Ombudsman Service handles complaints if the bank does not help. For a broader tool comparison see the best subscription trackers in the UK, and for what each Era plan includes, see the pricing page.
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