Atom Bank selects SurePay to prevent fraud and misdirected online payments

SurePay has today announced another successful implementation of its UK Confirmation of Payee solution for the UK’s first app-based bank, Atom bank. The Financial Technology company from the Netherlands is already responsible for checking over 95 per cent of all Dutch payments with the IBAN-Name Check and its Confirmation of Payee solution checks 25 per cent of all online payments in the UK.

According to research from UK Finance in the first-half of 2020 losses to customers of internet banking fraud jumped by 32 per cent to £64.3m, with cases doubling from the same period in 2019 to just over 21,000. Impersonation scams have also been on the rise, with more fraudsters pretending to be trusted organisations, with 15,000 cases reported.

Confirmation of Payee in the UK

SurePay developed a Confirmation of Payee solution to comply with all relevant UK rules and regulations. The service enables payers to verify that the payee’s name and sort code match so they can prevent transferring money to the wrong person or business, whether by intent (payment fraud) or unintentionally (misdirected payments). Second is that in an onboarding process you’re able to verify the contra account of the potential customer.

The algorithm detects and interprets subtle differences between payee details entered by the payer and the payee details officially registered at the bank. The service aims to significantly reduce the number of payments made in error, prevent fraudulent transfers and provide users with peace of mind when making a credit transfer online. Most importantly, the algorithm will not interfere with correct payments because the entered details are verified instantly and the user experience is unaffected.

In June of this year, SurePay announced its solution was being provided to NatWest Group.

Richard Koldewijn, Business Development Manager UK, commented: “Our mission is to make online payments personal, easy to use and even more secure. With all the things 2020 has thrown at the world, fraud has been on the rise as more people are willing to take advantage of the vulnerable. With Confirmation of Payee, we’re able to offer banks a way to help protect more people. We are excited to partner with Atom bank to help protect their customers against fraud and will continue working on further solutions for the UK and Europe.”

Roger Mackintosh, Head of Payments and Partnerships for Atom bank, added: “Keeping customers money safe is our top priority and we’re working tirelessly to make sure our customers have the best technology to protect them. We’re impressed with the work SurePay has done to date and the ability to implement Confirmation of Payee so quickly.”

SurePay has already performed almost 3 billion checks since 2016. In the UK SurePay has performed over 30 million checks, with more than 300,000 checks every day with sub-second response time. In the Netherlands, SurePay realised a drop in fraud and scams of 81 per cent and 67 per cent drop in misdirected payments.