Australian Payments Plus (AP+) and the Australian Banking Association (ABA) have completed the design of the new Confirmation of Payee (CoP) service which will enable people paying to an account with a name, BSB and Account number to confirm the account name of the payee before the payment is made.
While most UK-based consumers have been accustomed to Confirmation of Payee since 2020, with over 100 UK organisations having already implemented the service, Australia Payments Plus hopes to enable Australian firms to implement it in early 2025.
CoP adds a layer of protection in the prevention of scams and frauds resulting from misdirected payments as well as reducing mistaken payments by consumers.
The matching service determines whether a name matches based on account data provided by each payee Financial Institution (FI) when compared to the account name entered by the payer. When a match result is a match or close match, a name display is provided to the payer. If this isn’t the case, then the name of the account holder will not be displayed.
Lynn Kraus, CEO of Australian Payments Plus, commented: “Developing a Confirmation of Payee solution is an important step forward for the industry in the pursuit of combatting scams and frauds. In addition to working with the New Payments Platform (NPP) participating institutions that will be involved in implementing this solution, we have solicited input from over 50 community groups in an effort to ensure we have a broad perspective of views. Creating broad-based community support for the solution will be vital to its effectiveness.
“At AP+ our purpose is to unite people and technology to power better experiences, and I believe the CoP solution delivers to that purpose. We are in a unique position to bring industry groups together to create a solution that will help everyone reduce mistaken payments and combat scams and frauds.”
Implementing Confirmation of Payee in Australia
In March 2024, Swift, the global payment messaging network, revealed that it had been selected by Australian Payments Plus to build confirmation of payee, to provide Australians with more confidence when sending money.
Swift, which built and runs the NPP, was tasked with building and managing the central matching service which underpins the CoP service.
It expects to roll out the new service in phases, with centralised capability including account matching logic and standardised APIs being progressively built and tested throughout 2024, enabling financial institutions to integrate the service into their banking channels starting in early 2025.
Anna Bligh, CEO of the Australian Banking Association says Australia’s banks were investing $100million in this new anti-scam technology to provide even more safeguards to customers.
“Banks are investing in this new service so customers have another important layer of protection against scammers. Customers will have more confidence that they are transferring money to the right person and not to a potential scammer. We are one step closer to having a new weapon in the war against scammers. It forms part of the sector’s Scam-Safe Accord which is a set of world-leading safeguards by banks to help keep the money of Australians safe,” Bligh explained.
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