Confirmation of Payee Inbound

Introducing Confirmation of Payee- making sending funds into a GBP Currencycloud account easier and providing greater assurance to you and your customers.

What is Confirmation of Payee?

It’s an account validation tool that verifies that the right account details match the right recipient - this could be either a personal or a business account. It helps avoid payments being sent to the wrong account, and adds another layer of protection in the fight against fraud and scams. 

How will this benefit me?

Previously, when a payer set up a GBP Currencycloud account as a new beneficiary, or amended the details of an existing GBP Currencycloud beneficiary, they may have seen a warning message, suggesting the account details could not be validated, possibly casting doubt or worry that the payment may not reach its destination. 

With Confirmation of Payee, Currencycloud account details will be validated in real-time, including account name, account number and sort code before sending a payment, making sure that anyone who is sending funds to a Currencycloud GBP account is going to the right person.  

By using this service you reduce the risk of fraud related financial losses to your business. It’s a cost effective way to validate the data in real-time. And it means your intended beneficiary gets their payment and isn’t waiting for funds due to being the victim of fraud - a better customer experience all around. 

Who can use Confirmation of Payee? 

This feature is available to anyone making a payment from a UK bank account to a Currencycloud GBP account - as long as the sender’s bank is also signed up to the Confirmation of Payee scheme, which most banks are. 

For clients using our platform for their own business payments, validation will only be matched against the House account name.

What are the types of messages a payer could see?

What can I do to help make sure me or my customers don’t have any problems when someone tries to fund me or my customer's Currencycloud business account? 

Here are some tips to help make sure anyone funding you or your customers’ business accounts will be successful: 

• Include the full legal or ‘trading as’ name on invoices
• If the name clients or customers have registered with us is a shortened version of their own business name, to tell their business partners. We’ll only recognize the name we have on record
• Anyone funding a Currencycloud account should not create a shortened version of the business name, such as just using initials
• Ask anyone funding a Currencycloud account to only include the full legal or trading name in the ‘account name’ field. We’re asking our clients to tell their business partners not to add any other information such as what the payment is for or the name of the bank
• Making sure that anyone funding the account knows that they’re making a payment to a business account, not a personal account

What do I need to do and when will it be live? 

From 4 December 2023,  anyone setting up a new GBP Currencycloud beneficiary, or amending details for an existing GBP Currencycloud beneficiary from a UK bank account will start to see the new account name checking service. 

Important - Account names containing the following supported characters will be able to use the Confirmation of Payee service: 

If any of your own or your customers’ accounts have been created using any unsupported characters (i.e. characters not included in the list above), they won’t be able to use this new service. 

This doesn’t mean that either your own or your customers’ accounts containing unsupported characters can’t receive funds in GBP - it simply means that they won’t be able to use Confirmation of Payee and the fraud warning may persist even if the account is the correct one. 

How quickly can I benefit from Confirmation of Payee after my GBP account is set up?

In most cases, you will be able to validate and fund your account within a minute or two of it being set up. In some instances, you may need to wait until the next day before validation and funding can take place.

I’d like to use Confirmation of Payee, but my own or my customer’s GBP virtual account name contains unsupported characters - what can I do? 

We’ve just rolled out the first phase of this feature, which currently only includes accounts with the supported characters listed above.  

The name on my account has changed, how quickly will this be updated and recognised by the Confirmation of Payee solution?

After making a change to the name on an account, you can expect to see the validation checks updated the next day.

How do I know if my bank uses a Confirmation of Payee solution?

As there are many different banks both clients and customers will be using to fund a Currencycloud account, we can’t always be certain that all banks will offer this service. We’d therefore recommend that you check with your own banking provider to see if they do offer this service.

What if I don’t want to use the Confirmation of Payee solution? 

You’ll automatically be opted into Confirmation of Payee. This is an industry wide initiative designed to help reduce fraud so we strongly recommend that you remain opted in to this service. However if you or your customers would like to opt out, contact support@currencycloud.com where we will assess your reasons and respond to you within 5 working days. Any information shared with us will be treated as confidential. Please note that you can’t opt out of Confirmation of Payee when you or your customers are making a payment to someone else. 

If you do opt out, anyone who tries to make a payment to your Currencycloud GBP account could see a warning message from their bank saying the payee’s details can’t be checked. This could potentially result in payments to your or your customer’s account being delayed, as the payer may not wish to go ahead with the payment when they see the warning message. 

And how do I opt back into the scheme? 

Just like opting out - if you want to opt back into the scheme, please reach out to us at support@currencycloud.com.