Pay.UK: Confirmation of Payee checks reach ‘milestone’

Confirmation of Payee (CoP) has reached two billion checks in the UK, according to the not-for-profit operator of the UK’s national retail payments system Pay.UK.

Since being introduced in 2020, CoP has been implemented by more than 100 organisations, with 1.9 million checks being completed every day.

The account name-checking services works by prompting a banking customer to verify the name that they have input matches the name on the account receiving the funds, and if they fail to match, the customer is alerted, to make them aware of the risk of proceeding with the payment.

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has mandated that over 350 organisations join CoP in 2024.

Pay.UK’s Kate Frankish

Kate Frankish, chief business development officer and anti-fraud lead at Pay.UK, called it not only a “significant milestone”, but “unequivocal evidence on the key role CoP plays” in protecting consumers from becoming the victims of fraud.

“The service has been instrumental in reducing fraud and misdirected payments. As we move forward, we remain committed to developing innovative solutions to stay ahead of fraudsters and protect end-users in the ever-changing digital and payments landscape,” she added.

The PSR’s new mandatory authorised push payment fraud reimbursement requirement comes into force on 7 October this year.

Frankish said the scheme “will change the way consumers are reimbursed when fraud is committed against them”.

“The sending bank is liable to refund the victim within five days and the receiving bank is then liable to refund 50% to the sending bank,” she added.

“This regulation has driven the focus on ways to prevent fraud in the first case, of which CoP is one of the multi-layered solutions in the market.”

In October 2023, the PSR published, for the first time, data showing the full extent of how well banks and other payment firms are tackling APP fraud and their treatment of those who fell victim to scams.