UK Payment Systems Regulator releases policy statement on Confirmation of Payee Requirements

In January 2020, the regulator proposed a consultation paper based on the proposed changes to Specific Direction 10 (which requires payment service providers to implement the Confirmation of Payee). Confirmation of Payee is a system which ensures that certain identifiers such as name, sort code, and account number of a payee are verified against the records of a payment services provider before a payment is made.

PSPs, consumer groups, industry associations, and payments consultancies, provided their feedback, enabling PSR to decide to implement three changes to Specific Direction 10:

• To introduce an additional basis for a directed PSP to ask for an exemption from an obligation under the direction;
• To make clear that the PSR will always impose a new date for compliance with the Specific Direction 10 requirements if it approves an exemption under the additional basis (this aspect was not originally proposed by the PSR and has been added to the amendments as a result of feedback to the consultation);
• To exempt HSBC UK Bank from the obligations of the direction in respect of accounts held with it that form part of HSBC Group’s Private Banking brand.