The six biggest British banks have until the end of March 2020 to fully implement confirmation of payee scheme, the country’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has announced.
Confirmation of payment, or CoP, is way to avoid so-called authorized push payment scams where the victim is manipulated, often through impersonation, to send money to the fraudster. Under the new scheme payees will be able to determine whether or not the person they are transferring money to is really who they say they are.
To be successful, CoP requires the UK’s six big banks, which make up roughly 90 per cent of the country’s bank transfers, to fully implement the new service by March 31 2020.
The implementation of CoP will happen in two stages. The deadline for the first is for December 31 2019. By then, banks must be able to talk to each other from each other. The example used by PSR is that the receiving bank should be able to notify the sending bank that there is not a match.
The second and final deadline is the one at the end of March next year. By that time, banks are required to end CoP requests and notify the payer of the outcome – for example, if there was a name match or a mismatch, banks should notify the person making the payment.
Louise Buckley, co-managing director of the PSR, said the announcement marked a significant step in boosting the protection against scammers. “UK banks have a clear deadline by which they need to have the systems in place to make sure that people are better protected from this devastating crime, and that it stops those payments from being made in the first place,” Buckley continued. “We will be monitoring this closely to make sure it is implemented effectively.”
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