Confirmation of Payee Checking payments you will receive

We’re introducing Confirmation of Payee (CoP), a name checking service to help protect against Authorised Push Payment Scams and reduce the number of payments which are made by mistake.

When you set up a new payment or amend an existing payment, it lets you check you’re paying the right person or business so you can see if the name matches who they say they are.

CoP also lets a person or business sending you a payment check your name matches your account.

Authorised Push Payments (APPs) are made when a bank or building society (also known as a payment services provider or PSP) is instructed to make a payment from a customer account to another account without using a debit or credit card.

Authorised Push Payment scams (APP scams) are where you intended to send money to someone, but were tricked into sending money to someone else; or, you send money to someone for what you thought was a genuine purpose, but was actually fraudulent.
Payments related to APP scams can be made over the phone, online or in person and most are completed instantly.
We’re working closely with other Industry participants to introduce the new CoP service in a consistent way. This means we’ll be able to:

• respond to Confirmation of Payee requests sent by other banks for payments made to our customers from the 31st December 2019
• request Confirmation of Payee checks from other banks for payments sent by our customers in 2020

When someone is paying you for the first time or they’re making changes to the payment instruction details, they’ll be asked to confirm if your account is a Business or Personal Account. We’ll be asked to confirm if your account name is correct and matches the name on the payment instruction and confirm the Account type is correct.

The Payment Sender will receive a response to say how closely the information matches and they’ll then be able to make a decision on whether they want to make the payment, check the details they’ve input are correct or not proceed with making the payment.

• If they get a Match – They know your account is your personal or business account and have used the correct account name, they can proceed with the payment.
• If they get a Close Match – they’ve used a similar name, we will be sharing your account name back with the senders bank and this will be provided to that person - They can decide whether to make the payment or check with you.

• If they don’t get a Match - They should check with you before making the payment but they can decide to proceed with the payment without checking with you.

Some exceptions:

If the Payment Sender’s bank is not registered for Confirmation of Payee, or is not quite ready to send requests to us, then they won’t see any change to their payment process and will be able to pay you as they do today.

Where the Confirmation of Payee name check isn’t available an onscreen message will confirm that to the other person and will be able to pay you as they do today.

Is your account for personal use or for your business? You can help by telling anyone making a payment to you the account type when you give them your account details. If you’re unsure of your account type please check with us.

Is the name they are inputting correct? The name we hold on your account might not be the name the person is inputting – for example they may be inputting Jim where your account name is James or they may know you as Bob my builder but your business account is Bob the Builder Limited. If you’re not sure you can check your account on Internet Banking, check your statement on Mobile banking or give us a call. For joint accounts, the full first and last name of either individual will ensure the name check is made.

The name/trading name we hold on your account might not be the name the person is inputting

In 2020 Confirmation of Payee will be available whenever you’re setting up new regular or one-off payments in GBP using Faster Payments or CHAPs from personal or business UK Sterling Accounts, or where the details associated with an existing beneficiary are being amended. You’ll see the new functionality whenever you are making these payments using online or mobile banking.

We’ll let you know when the name check is available for sending payments.

You can also visit the UK Finance Q&A for consumers and businesses on Confirmation of Payee, by clicking here.