New name check service for online payments to help prevent fraud - MSE News

Former_MSE_Naomi

A new 'name check' service is being set up to tackle money transfer scams and lower the risk of online payments being sent to the wrong account - with some banks expected to start using it early next year...

Read the full story:
'New name check service for online payments to help prevent fraud'

Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply.

FormulaDriven

Reading the details, I'm feeling quite prophetic - some of us discussed this on this forum four years ago....

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=65350691&postcount=41

eskbanker

I don't think it's been flagged as a separate story but the authority announcing this is Pay.UK, the new name for what was previously referred to as NPSO (New Payment System Operator), the umbrella body into which Bacs, Faster Payments and the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company were absorbed.

Pay.UK might sound like an on-trend identity but it doesn't make for a straightforward search - perhaps Google is taking some time to catch up but searching for 'pay.uk' or just 'pay uk' inevitably brings up all sorts of results other than this body, so for anyone else wanting to get to the organisation's own website it can be found at https://www.wearepay.uk/ - doh!

I was hoping that there would be some more detail (especially in the previously-discussed area of such checking itself being open to fraudulent misuse and/or data protection issues) but there's little more than the press release parroted by MSE, at https://www.wearepay.uk/new-name-check-safeguard-for-payments-revealed/, although the relevant part of their site is https://www.wearepay.uk/confirmation-of-payee/

HUMBUG

The fact that banks have lost hundreds of millions of pounds over several years before implementing this makes me wonder why they didn't act sooner? It's almost as if the lost revenue to them and the grief caused to their customers was a 'price worth paying ' .Yet we know that those lost millions were probably being siphoned into organised crime and possible funding for terrorist groups. Think about all the potential growth in those areas that could have been stopped but where they 'turned a blind eye'. Now the organised crime/terrorist institutions have more than enough money to hire high tech experts and expensive technology to infiltrate any security systems. They've let the genie out of the bottle!

Tallaght

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45900955

antrobus

HUMBUG wrote: »

....They've let the genie out of the bottle!

What genie, what bottle?

eskbanker

HUMBUG wrote: »

The fact that banks have lost hundreds of millions of pounds over several years before implementing this makes me wonder why they didn't act sooner?

What makes you claim that as a fact?

As I understand it, the liability for sending money to the wrong account accidentally (or to the 'right' one in an APP scam) generally remains with the sender, even though in some cases it has been known for customers to obtain recompense from banks where they've succeeded in making a case that the bank should share some of the pain.

agrinnall

I opened a Marcus account yesterday and they required the reference on the first transfer into the account to be my name, so I wonder whether they have decided to put this check into place in advance of it being implemented more widely?

madvicker

HUMBUG wrote: »

The fact that banks have lost hundreds of millions of pounds over several years before implementing this makes me wonder why they didn't act sooner? It's almost as if the lost revenue to them and the grief caused to their customers was a 'price worth paying ' .Yet we know that those lost millions were probably being siphoned into organised crime and possible funding for terrorist groups. Think about all the potential growth in those areas that could have been stopped but where they 'turned a blind eye'. Now the organised crime/terrorist institutions have more than enough money to hire high tech experts and expensive technology to infiltrate any security systems. They've let the genie out of the bottle!

Umm. What?

robatwork

A Pay UK representative was on Money Box a couple of weeks ago and gave a date of IIRC May 2019 for implementation with certain banks. Paul Lewis did point out that they previously promised Sept 2018 and rightly gave her a hard time about it.

The interesting part of this for me is this:

No, please check

If you used a similar name to the account holder, you will be provided with the actual name of the account holder to check. You can update the details and try again, or contact the intended recipient to check the details.

No, the name is wrong

If you have entered the wrong name for the account holder you will be told the details do not match and advised to contact the person or organisation you are trying to pay.

The matching decision is made by the intended recipient’s bank

Does this mean there isn't a standard, industry-agreed algorithm for name matching? So OSullivan may or may not match O'Sullivan or O'Sulivan or O-Sullivan or O Sullivan depending on the recipient bank.

Suspect there are some GDPR concerns too regarding revealing almost matching names. I doubt the great unwashed banking public will ever know the logic employed.

HornetSaver

My general thoughts on this are it's a step forward but with a very large asterisk next to that statement. This is likely to disproportionately affect married women who use their maiden name for professional reasons, a more-and-more common practise. It is likely to increase the level of administration before a bank account is set up, as the risk to the bank of getting an identity wrong will become higher. And for those who might see this as the straw that broke the camel's back with regards to legally changing their first name (as dramatic as that might sound, many people use their middle name or an adopted nickname, and not being able to receive money is kind of a big deal), the ease of this process would be down to the individual bank.



Those caveats aside, this is long overdue.