Bottomline Technologies Offers Confirmation Of Payee For UK Banks

U.S. payments company Bottomline Technologies has announced it is now providing Confirmation of Payee (CoP) services to banks in the United Kingdom.

Bottomline, which describes itself as “a leading provider of financial technology that makes business payments simple, smart and secure,” said use of a CoP service is legally mandated for some British banks and is intended to curtail the deliberate misdirection of electronic payments.

“Confirmation of Payee can help eligible banks and building societies give payers greater assurance that they are sending their payments to the intended recipients, and help avoid payments being accidentally or fraudulently misdirected,” Bottomline wrote in a Thursday (Aug. 3) news release. “For any new beneficiary, the technology performs a real-time account name check against the payee account. As an overlay service, CoP can support payments made by Faster Payment, CHAPS and Bacs-originated credits.”

“Authorised Push Payment fraud is the fastest-growing category of fraud in our industry with £456m losses last year,” Ed Adshead-Grant, London-based general manager and director of payments at Bottomline Technologies, said in a prepared statement. “With this new SaaS-based service, we can have any eligible bank or building society quickly up and running with (confirmation of payment) on their accounts to ensure they remain competitive in the role of trusted guardian as well as reducing the risk of fraudulent APP activity.”

“The new service offers protection for consumers through the account name checking service, reducing errors and fraudulent misdirection of funds,” said Brian Cunnington, Confirmation of Payee subject matter expert at Pay.UK, which owns Confirmation of Payee. “We are delighted to see Confirmation of Payee now making a difference in the UK payments environment.”

Pay.UK runs retail payments operations in the U.K., including Bacs, Faster Payments and Cheques, and offers other payments-related services, according to its website.

Adoption of digital payment systems already was occurring at a quick pace before the coronavirus pandemic, industry insiders have said, but is likely to take place at an even faster rate as economies emerge from shutdowns.

In a recent PYMNTS forum, Bottomline Technologies Rob Eberle said, moving money more quickly means fraud protection that is simple, smart and secure becomes essential. He predicted there is likely to be more deal making among payments players, from traditional financial institutions to FinTechs.