An “OBP” charge on your bank or credit card statement usually means an Open Banking Payment: money moved directly from a bank account to a merchant’s account through a third-party payment initiator rather than through a card network like Visa or Mastercard. If you don’t recognize the OBP payment charge on your statement, it may be a subscription or pay-by-bank checkout you’ve forgotten, or it may be unauthorized. What you do next depends on which one it turns out to be.
What OBP Means on a Statement
Open banking payments are account-to-account transfers. A Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP) connects to your bank through a secure API and moves funds directly to the merchant, and you authenticate with your online banking credentials instead of a card number. The money travels on domestic payment rails and can settle almost instantly. At checkout these are often labeled “pay-by-bank.”
Because the transaction never touches a card network, the descriptor on your statement doesn’t have to match a familiar store name. It can show up as “OBP” followed by a reference number or a shortened company name tied to the payment processor rather than the business you bought from. That’s why the line item can look like nothing you recognize even when the purchase was yours.
Check These Before Assuming Fraud
A few ordinary explanations account for most unrecognized OBP charges:
- A subscription or recurring service you signed up for that bills through open banking instead of a card. The descriptor reflects the processor, not the service.
- Someone else on the account, such as a family member or joint holder, making a legitimate purchase.
- A pending hold that reads differently from the final charge. The descriptor can change once the transaction settles.
Search your email for receipts from around the date and amount of the charge, and review the active subscriptions inside any apps or services you use. Merchant lookup tools can also help decode an unfamiliar descriptor. Ramp’s Charge Finder draws on data from over a million merchant acceptors, and Brex’s Charge Finder covers a verified database of millions of merchant descriptors.
If the Charge Is Unauthorized
Your rights and the steps you take differ depending on whether the OBP payment came out of a credit card account or a bank account.
Credit Card Charges
The Fair Credit Billing Act gives credit card holders the right to dispute billing errors. Send a written dispute to your card issuer at the address designated for billing inquiries, not the payment address, within 60 days after the first statement containing the charge was sent to you. Include your name, account number, the charge amount and date, and an explanation of why you believe it’s an error. Certified mail with a return receipt is recommended.
Once the issuer receives the dispute, it must acknowledge it in writing within 30 days and resolve it within 90 days. You can withhold payment on the disputed amount while the investigation is open, and the issuer cannot report you as delinquent or send that charge to collections. If fraud is confirmed, federal law caps your liability at $50.
Debit Card and Bank Account Charges
For debit cards and other electronic fund transfers out of a deposit account, Regulation E applies. Notify your bank within two business days of learning about the unauthorized charge and your liability is limited to $50 or the actual unauthorized amount, whichever is less. After two business days, liability can rise to $500. If you fail to report unauthorized transactions within 60 days of the statement being sent, you could face unlimited liability for transfers that occur after that window.
The bank generally has 10 business days to investigate, or 20 if the account is new, and must issue a temporary credit if the investigation takes longer. Final resolution is normally required within 45 days. Certain transactions, including foreign, point-of-sale, and new-account transfers, allow up to 90 days.
One Gap Worth Knowing About
Open banking payments processed as direct bank transfers may not carry the same built-in chargeback protections that card transactions do. Card networks provide a structured dispute and chargeback layer on top of federal law. Account-to-account transfers don’t have that layer in the United States: consumer protection relies on Regulation E if the funds left a deposit account electronically, plus whatever contractual protections the payment provider offers. You can still dispute an unauthorized electronic fund transfer under Regulation E, but there’s no separate network chargeback to fall back on.
How To Report the Fraud
If you’ve concluded the charge is fraudulent, move quickly:
- Call the number on the back of your card or on your bank’s website to report the charge and ask that the card or account be blocked or replaced.
- Place a one-year fraud alert by contacting any one of the three credit bureaus: Equifax (1-800-525-6285), Experian (1-888-397-3742), or TransUnion (1-800-680-7289). The bureau you contact must notify the other two.
- Report the incident at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, or at IdentityTheft.gov if you believe your personal information was compromised.
- If your bank or card issuer doesn’t resolve the dispute properly, file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at consumerfinance.gov/complaint or by calling (855) 411-2372. Companies generally respond within 15 days.
- File a police report with local law enforcement. The official record can support your dispute with the bank and the credit bureaus.