NatWest ’s Open Banking payments solution Payit has teamed up with Teneo to accelerate the digital transformation of its payments. Teneo will be one of the first customers to use Payit’s new functionality which incorporates Confirmation of Payee (CoP).

As a financial advisory firm that pays dividends to employees and creditors affected by insolvent businesses, Teneo sought a solution that provided quick payments. But it also needed to be capable of this when bank details are not readily available. It stated that the existing process for this was manual and required individuals to prove their bank account details before a payment was made.

Payit, which integrates with existing technology, will help Teneo to pay those affected by insolvent businesses almost instantly whilst ensuring payments can only be made into the recipients’ bank account. With this, Teneo can be rid of manual verification. The additional functionality through Payit requires no integration work to use and is free of charge.

It will enable Teneo to pay those affected by insolvent businesses almost instantly whilst ensuring payments can only be made into the recipients’ bank account, eliminating the current need for manual verification on an individual’s bank account. The payment journey provides individuals with greater control, efficiency, and security, by leveraging the latest in payments technology. What is CoP? CoP is a name-checking service for payments that is aimed at reducing certain types of fraud and misdirected payments.

Before this service was introduced, the payer would have to provide the Payment Service Provider (PSP) with the payee’s details, such as bank account number, sort code and name and the payment would be routed in accordance with the instructions given. But there was no way of reassuring the payer that their payment was being sent to the intended beneficiary. Using new technologies, it is now possible to check the name linked to an account number using smart algorithms without causing a delay in the handling of the payment and without violating the privacy of the account holders.

Since its UK debut, CoP has grown to encompass some of the largest banks, including Lloyds, NatWest, Ulster Bank, HSBC, Barclays, Santander and Nationwide, covering approximately 90% of all bank transfers in the country. Despite this, there are still gaps in the market, meaning that many customers are left vulnerable. These gaps pose a severe threat to the system as fraudsters are likely to increase their efforts to target and exploit the consumers that are banking with institutions that do not offer a CoP service.

While the industry is debating whether CoP should become mandatory, public debate is set to cause quite some reputational damage to those not offering the service. The British media appears to have taken a 'name and shame' approach towards those banks which are 'letting us down in the fight against fraud'. .