In April, the UK introduced new regulations that require some UK banks to verify the name on the bank account you are sending money to, using a system called “Confirmation of Payee” (or COP).

What does this mean?

This means that when you send a payment, your bank will contact the destination bank and try to verify the name on the bank account.  Which? has written a helpful guide on COP. As the Which article highlights, there are one of 4 possible outcomes.

“No name check” is fine!

Not all banks support COP – of the 23 banks in the Which? report, only 7 support COP (and 3 of those are banks in the RBS group).

So, unless you are sending a payment from a COP bank to another COP bank , the result will always be “No name check”. This means most payments will result in “No name check”.

Solidi’s bank does not currently support COP. You will always be warned that there was ‘No name check’. This is fine.

Still worried? Send a small test payment

Being cautious with payments is important. To be sure you are sending to the right account for Solidi, send a small payment – as little as £1. We will email you as soon as the payment arrives (usually in under a minute) and it will be credited to your account as a GBP balance. Once you have sent a successful small test payment you can then confidently send larger payments.

Why was Confirmation Of Payee (COP) introduced?

Confirmation Of Payee was introduced to make sending payments safer and to reduce a type of fraud called “Authorised Push Payment” fraud (or APP).  APP fraud losses hit £456 million in 2019.

APP happens in a number of ways. One of the most common is someone pretending to be from your bank and convincing you that you need to move your money to a “safe account”, which is actually the fraudster’s account.

Another is when a bank customer is sending the deposit for a house to their solicitor. The fraudster manages to change the payment details to their personal bank account (e.g. “Joe Bloggs”) instead of their solicitor’s bank account (e.g. “Good Practice Solicitors Ltd”).

In both these instances the customer is fully liable for the fraud as they willingly confirmed the payment. A fully working Confirmation of Payee system would alert the customer that they are not sending the money to a safe bank account or to their solicitor’s account.

It’s early days – “No name check” is fine!

In time, Conformation of Payee will help protect consumers from fraud. Currently, we have to accept that it only works in a small number of cases and that the “No name check” result is fine.

But if in doubt, send a small test payment!