What Is a Continuous Payment Authority and How Do You Stop One?

A CPA is set up when you hand a business your card number and agree it can charge you on a recurring basis. The FCA describes recurring card payments as letting businesses charge your payment card without getting your permission each time, and notes they are often used for subscriptions, memberships, and short-term loan repayments. It is not a Direct Debit and not a standing order: those pull from your bank account using your sort code and account number, while a CPA runs on the card itself. The distinction matters because the FCA says recurring card payments are not covered by the Direct Debit Guarantee. In the US the identical arrangement is simply called a recurring card payment, covered at /guides/how-to-stop-recurring-credit-card-payments.

There are two ways to cancel, and you can use either one. Contact the business taking the payment and ask it to stop, or ask your card issuer to cancel the payment. The FCA's position on the second route is unambiguous: once you have asked them to, your card issuer must stop the payments, even if you have not contacted the business. There is a deadline attached — you must ask the card issuer or the business by the end of the business day before your next payment is due to be taken. In practice, do both. Telling the merchant ends the underlying agreement; telling the bank enforces the stop regardless of what the merchant does.

If money still leaves your account afterwards, you are in strong territory. The FCA states that any further payments taken by the business after you cancel a recurring card payment are considered unauthorised transactions, and that your card issuer must refund those payments and any related charges immediately. Keep dated notes of when you told each party and how, because that record is what turns a disputed charge into an obvious one. If the issuer will not refund you, complain to the firm first and then to the Financial Ombudsman Service. One caveat: stopping the payment does not cancel the contract behind it, so a gym or fixed-term agreement can still leave you owing a balance.

Two practical notes. Consent is a real requirement, not a formality — the FCA says businesses can only take recurring payments from your card with your consent, and that consent should be clear, specific, and informed, meaning you were told enough about the amount and frequency to agree to it. And getting a replacement card is not a workaround, because card networks pass updated card details to merchants you have paid before; the mechanism is explained at /answers/what-is-a-card-account-updater. Finally, if you subscribed through an app store, the store is the merchant, so cancel there: Settings > [your name] > Subscriptions on an iPhone, or Play Store > profile icon > Payments & subscriptions > Subscriptions on Android.