As financial regulators push for greater security in digital payments, Verification of Payee is becoming a more common approach to tackle escalating fraud — but just how global is it? In this article we do a global overview of Verification of Payee to highlight which countries have already implemented it, and the answer may surprise you.
In October 2024, the European Payments Council (EPC) introduced Verification Of Payee (VOP), and published the EU’s first VOP scheme rulebook, a huge step forward for digital payments. By the 9th October 2025 Payment Service Providers (PSP) that offer instant payment or credit transfers within Single Euro Payments Areas (SEPA) will have to implement VOP.
If you haven’t already got the acronym VOP on your jargon list, it’s going to be the talk of the town in Europe in 2025, so you best jot it down.
At Ozone API, we’re at the heart of financial innovation as we’re continuously monitoring global open banking and open finance regulations, ensuring that our platform complies with the latest industry standards. And we’re thrilled to see the development of VOP. Here’s our global overview.
What is Verification Of Payee?
VOP is a fraud prevention and security measure that reduces the risk of a payment being sent to the wrong person or business by verifying the payee’s details before the transaction is processed.
Is Verification Of Payee in the EU and Confirmation of Payee in the UK the same?
VOP and CoP have been put in place fundamentally to achieve the same objectives – reduce payment fraud and misdirected payments, increase consumer trust in digital payments, and improve the security of them. However, VOP and CoP have slightly different required inputs and outputs when performing verification. VOP allows either the account name or an unambiguous account identifier (like LEI or a Tax Code) to be verified using an IBAN, whereas CoP verifies a business or personal account name using Sort Code and Account Number (SCAN) as the primary identifier.
Confirmation of Payee in the UK
The UK’s Confirmation of Payee (CoP) system was introduced in 2020 by Pay.UK to reduce fraud and improve payment accuracy. And it has been hugely successful. Since CoP launched 5 years ago, there has been a 60% reduction in the volume of related fraud cases.
All banks, building societies, and payment service providers (PSPs) that meet certain criteria, as defined by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), are required to comply with CoP, including major banks like Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Nationwide and Santander.
In October 2024, Kate Fitzgerald, Head of Policy at the PSR, said: “Confirmation of Payee has quickly become an essential anti-fraud tool. Since its launch in 2020, more than 2.5 billion checks have been completed.” (Finextra).
Confirmation of Payee in Australia
In August 2024, the Australian Payments Plus (AP+) and the Australian Banking Association (ABA) announced they’d completed the design phase for a new Confirmation of Payee (CoP) service in the country. CoP is now expected to be rolled out in phases in Australia, with centralised capability including account matching logic and standardised APIs being progressively built and tested throughout 2024, allowing financial institutions to integrate the service into their banking channels starting in early 2025.
Anna Bligh, CEO of the ABA said Australia’s banks were investing $100 million in this new anti-scam technology to provide even more safeguards to customers.
Lynn Kraus, CEO of AP+ said, “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. (Australian Banking Association)
Confirmation of Payee in the Netherlands
After the UK announced CoP in 2019, the Netherlands followed with its own version, releasing IBAN name check in July 2021 as part of a broader effort by the country’s banks to improve payment security. The Netherlands were one of the first countries in the EU to fully implement this service, aiming to increase consumer confidence in digital payments.
Major Dutch banks use IBAN name check for domestic transactions. As of 2023, all major banks in the Netherlands have implemented it, including ABN AMRO, ING, Rabobank, and SNS Bank.
Verification Of Payee in Belgium
Belgium introduced Verification Of Payee (VOP) in 2022, with major banks and payment service providers in the country integrating the system. The goal was to enhance security for digital payments, similar to the approach taken in the Netherlands. Belgian banks such as KBC, BNP Paribas Fortis, and ING Belgium were among the early adopters of the system.
Verification Of Payee in UAE
Verification of Payee in the UAE is a fundamental capability of the Open Finance Framework, a market-wide platform that supports open finance operations, including account data sharing and payment initiation. The framework will also soon support insurance data sharing, insurance quotes, and foreign exchange.
The API Hub that underpins the UAE Open Finance Framework implements identification of IBAN to the correct financial institution, allowing the VOP request to be routed correctly, before verification of the IBAN is undertaken by the financial institution. Name matching is then performed by the API Hub, and provided back to TPPs for display to the customer.
In the UAE, VOP is mandated for payment initiation flows, meaning that TPPs must undertake VOP before initiating any payments, ensuring that payments can be executed on the Open Finance Framework with increased confidence.
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Are you surprised that Confirmation of Payee and Verification of Payee aren’t more widely adopted despite their benefits? A global overview of Verification of Payee shows that while adoption is growing, many regions have yet to implement it.
Banks and PSPs in the EU will now be preparing to comply with the EU VOP mandate, and come 2026, this list of countries will be much longer. Will other countries also start to see the huge benefit in having a fraud-preventing solution? Only time will tell.
If you’re a bank or PSP that needs to implement Verification of Payee, get in touch.
