Account Verification

Being unable to verify an account name against a sort code and account number poses a very significant challenge for Financial Institutions (FIs) and their customers. For FIs, it can cause regulatory, reputational and operational challenges. For people and businesses, the misdirection of funds – as a result of either fraud or error - causes significant distress both at the point of loss and whilst efforts are made to reclaim the customer’s money where possible.

At the moment, the end-user feels they are not always in full control of their payments; they feel vulnerable to the risk of payments either being misdirected or lost due to the lack of confirmation about the intended identity of the payee. This reduces the likelihood of end-users taking advantage of the benefits of paying electronically.

The recent ‘Which? super-complaint’ to the PSR12, on safeguards in the market for push payments, lays out some of these vulnerabilities, and it’s been highlighted as a key area of focus for the Payment Strategy Forum under its ‘Assurance Data’ workstream (described as ‘Confirmation of Payee’).

By bringing together cutting-edge data science techniques and our intimate knowledge of payments data, we are developing a truly ground-breaking solution to address the issue of confirmation of payee, called ‘Account Name Verification’.

Download the report to learn more...