Cross-border Confirmation of Payee solution launched

This service enables companies and banks to check that the account information entered matches the intended beneficiary when initiating cross-border payments between France and the Netherlands and marks an important first step towards a pan-European solution in the fight against fraud.  

The IBAN Check, known in the UK as Confirmation of Payee, is a way to give consumers, banks and companies greater assurance that their payments are being routed to the intended recipient and are not being accidentally or deliberately misdirected. 

Payments across Europe have increasingly shifted to digital channels, leading to a surge in fraud cases throughout the continent due to methods such as phishing, spoofing, APP scams and CEO fraud. Additionally, fraud is becoming increasingly international, whereby fraudsters are using foreign bank accounts for fraudulent purposes.

SEPAmail.eu offers an account check solution in France for more than 90% of bank accounts and SurePay’s IBAN-Name Check solution checks 99.5% of all online payments in the Netherlands. StreamMind has orchestrated the set-up, the cross-country SEPAmail homologation and ensures the connection between the two entities. By combining their networks, the companies will enable French and Dutch companies and banks to check that their payments are going to the intended beneficiary before the transaction is initiated. 

The IBAN verifications that are done by quiring directly the account database of banks, significantly reduce fraud and misdirected payments.

More details here.