By David Crawford, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Pay.UK
As featured in International Banker
The global payment landscape is undergoing a transformative shift, driven by new ideas, innovation and the race towards faster, more efficient and digitalised payments. Yet the move towards instant payments, which will increase choice and ease for end users, also brings new challenges as fraudsters seek to exploit gaps in the system.
The United Kingdom’s account name-checking service, Confirmation of Payee (CoP), has emerged as a key tool in reducing certain types of fraudulent activity. Launched in 2020 by Pay.UK, the service has since inspired similar payment fraud-prevention models around the world, including the European Payments Council’s (EPC’s) Verification of Payee (VoP) scheme, which became mandatory in the eurozone in October 2025. The lessons from the evolution of CoP and the subsequent introduction of VoP demonstrate how international adoption of anti-fraud tools and services, along with cross-border collaboration, are building a safer global payment system.
What is Confirmation of Payee?
CoP aims to reduce misdirected payments by providing greater assurance that payments are sent to and collected from the intended account holder when making a first-time UK payment. The service checks the payer’s name against the payee’s bank details and alerts the payer to any mismatches.
CoP’s effectiveness in preventing misdirected payments was quickly recognised, as was its intrinsic ability to also reduce instances of certain types of authorised push payment (APP) fraud. In 2022, the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) mandated industry-wide adoption of the service by October 2024, and today, CoP is used by more than 320 organisations, covering more than 99 percent of the UK’s Faster Payment System.
Since the launch of CoP, Pay.UK has continued to refine and expand the service’s core functionality, testing use cases beyond the initial scope of traditional payments to deliver maximum benefit to end users. These include exploring the service’s role in reducing misdirected payments across payroll, insurance payouts and direct-debit set-ups.
Learnings from Europe’s fight against payment fraud
- A proven blueprint can transcend market infrastructure.
CoP’s success in combating payment fraud in the UK has made it a source of inspiration for similar models worldwide, with both Australia and New Zealand drawing on the UK’s framework for their own successful implementations. The New Zealand Banking Association (NZBA) has noted similarities between its own rollout1 and the UK’s. This commenced in November 2024, aiming to achieve full coverage across all personal online and mobile-banking channels by April 20252. Similarly, Australia’s Confirmation of Payee (CoP) rollout, which started in July 2025, aims to be completed by the end of the year and provide nationwide coverage.
Recently, CoP’s framework served as the starting point for the creation of the EPC’s aforementioned VoP scheme, and this model is set for further adoption by non-eurozone payment service providers in European Union (EU) countries in 2027. The significance here lies not only in the mechanics of the CoP model itself, but also in its demonstrated success in creating a compelling case for others to engage, learn and adapt the framework for their own markets, thereby forming the very foundation of international cooperation.
- The power of cross-border cooperation
VoP’s creation underscores the importance of knowledge sharing. Indeed, the EPC actively sought the UK’s advice and guidance, keen to learn from CoP’s development and execution to inform its own initiative. Pay.UK worked closely with the Council for more than two years through a programme of regular engagement activities, including dedicated workshops and the open exchange of operational details, to provide key information and practical knowledge to help create VoP and support its development. This included the provision of rulebooks, technical specifications, operational complexities and guidance on where and how to avoid pitfalls.
This collaborative undertaking serves as a powerful reminder of how practical cross-border knowledge sharing can help develop effective solutions to enhance global payment security.
- Interoperability is the future of payments
While the UK’s CoP and the EPC’s VoP may differ somewhat in scope and implementation, their inherent similarities create a strong potential for future interoperability. CoP is an overlay service that primarily checks new payees when payers first make payments to new accounts. VoP, meanwhile, is embedded directly into the payment process and mandates a verification check for every instant payment, including those in bulk files. They also differ in their technical foundations and in how they interact with different banking structures. However, these differences do not diminish their shared purpose, and their fundamental models share a remarkable degree of similarity, opening the doors for future collaboration and interoperability.
The alignment between CoP and VoP is not a coincidence but a strategic decision undertaken by their operators to facilitate a path of global co-operation. Creating a truly global, secure payment landscape that meets the evolving needs and changes driven by digitalisation, risks and instant-payment demands requires looking beyond regional implementations.
Addressing the evolving nature of payment fraud remains a challenge for governments and payment-system operators worldwide. To combat this, payment-industry leaders are exploring the potential of an “international CoP”—a seamless, cross-border name-checking system. Such a service with interoperability at its core would be invaluable in the global fight against financial crime. The ability to verify payee details across borders as well as domestically would add a crucial layer of defence, making it significantly harder for fraudsters to exploit geographic boundaries and therefore easier for payment-system operators to combat this growing threat.
Collaboration is building a safer global payment system.
The journeys of the UK’s CoP and Europe’s subsequent VoP represent more than just a successful collaboration; combined, they provide the blueprint for the future of global payment security. The UK’s contributions to developing VoP serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of cross-border co-operation, knowledge sharing and transparency in delivering meaningful change with maximum benefit. The impact of CoP over the last five years has been felt far beyond the UK’s borders, and VoP is expected to have a similar global reach.
A coordinated global approach to name-checking services remains essential as international payment volumes grow. As financial crime and fraud become more sophisticated and increasingly borderless, shared expertise, co-operation and systems interoperability among governments and payment operations globally will be critical in keeping end users safe.
References
1 New Zealand Banking Association (NZBA): “Banks to start rolling out Confirmation of Payee in November,” October 9, 2024. (https://nzba.org.nz/banks-to-start-rolling-out-confirmation-of-payee-in-november)
2 Commerce Commission New Zealand: “Retail Payment System Update on open banking progress,” December 10, 2024. (https://www.comcom.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0025/363652/Retail-Payment-System-Update-on-open-banking-progress-10-December-2024.pdf)
