Latest Government Updates on Confirmation of Payee service

Latest Government Updates on Confirmation of Payee service

by Niharika Sharma

In the latest update, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has announced its plan to see around 400 more financial firms provide Confirmation of Payee service (CoP). This will be another significant move toward making transactions more secure and reducing the number of Authorised Push Payments (APP) scams. In July 2021 Confirmation of Payee phase 2 was live and ever since the Payment System Regulator has been keeping a close eye on online frauds and scams.

The pandemic provoked a surge in digital payments and e-commerce while giving fraudsters more opportunities to exploit. As a result, the banking and finance industry has been looking to tackle these transaction frauds and APP scams, and confirmation of payee service is one such additional layer of protection. Banks are securing payments with CoP and making transactions safe.

Bank CoP, as an essential fraud protection layer, will increase coverage from 92% to 99%. As per the Payment Systems Regulator, this will be covering all transactions made via Faster Payments (FPS) and CHAPS (when you make a payment transfer from one account to another. And these transactions are worth approximately £2.5 trillion!

Did you know losses due to authorised push payment scams reached £355.3 million in the first half of 2021. Concerned with these figures, more and more financial firms are voluntarily implementing and adopting the Confirmation of Payee service. You can too quickly adopt CoP to offer safer services to your customers through payee confirmation.

A step ahead with CoP

Pay.UK successfully implemented Phase 1 and Phase 2 Confirmation of Payee services and is now looking to take things further by including more banks and financial institutes to adhere to CoP services.

The Confirmation of Payee banks offer a layer that lets a person verify bank account details before initiating a transaction. As simple as confirming the payee's name to match the name on the intended recipient's bank account, customers can avoid misdirected payments and reduce push payment fraud to a great extent. Exela’s Confirmation of Payee service is an internet-facing web solution, adheres to the latest specification by Pay.UK, and conforms to the security requirements of Open Banking - a solution that can assist you in securing online transactions and payments.

While moving towards a safer payment environment, we still need to keep out for fraudsters. Not only are they getting smarter with their tech-savvy, but they are also working their way to softer targets with their tactics. Exela Confirmation of Payee system uses AI and advanced matching algorithms for efficient and quick checks. We aim to make payments safer for you and our customers!

Get in touch with you today and learn how you can benefit with Exela’s CoP UK service.

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