Do I need to change my name because of name checks?

confusedfreelancer

Apparently from July banks are going to stop accepting payments if the account names do not match.

I receive about half my income via my PayPal account and the other half from a freelancing platform that pays via Stripe. They both have my name as MiddleName Lastname, whereas the bank has it as FirstName MiddleName Lastname. I don't have any option to change my name on PayPal or the freelancing platform (I've asked and been refused).

Are payments going to stop going through when name checks come in? All the articles I can find suggest that the payer will be asked to confirm the name if it doesn't match, but how does that work if it's an automated system making the payment?

Do I need to change my name by deed poll to MiddleName Lastname?

masonic

I heard recently that this is being further delayed and probably won't be implemented until the end of this year.

It is unclear how the changes will accept existing payees that have been set up, or companies sending payments to consumers.

Uxb1

As far as I'm aware it won't be a hard check as in it must match exactly
The person doing the transfer will be presented with the name and be asked to confirm it is OK
Think about bank accounts with the name "Prof AD and Mrs PJ Jones Household a/c"
There are so many variations and shortened versions of that account name that just about any hard "must match exactly" check is almost bound to fail.

SnowTiger

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/10/new-name-check-service-to-help-prevent-fraud/:

The 'Confirmation of Payee' service has been developed by Pay.UK, which runs the UK's retail payment systems and oversees bank transfers and direct debits.

[...]

It will be rolled out from early 2019, and the payment systems regulator hopes to make the service compulsory for all banks from July 2019.

[...]

With this check, you'll be shown one of three answers:

"Yes". The bank will confirm that the name and details match, and you can continue with the payment.

"No, please check". If you've used a similar name to the correct account holder – for example, if you spelled their name wrong or used a nickname by mistake – the bank will tell you the actual name of the account holder. You can then either confirm that the name is correct and continue with the payment, or cancel the payment and contact the payee to check their details.

"No, the name is wrong". If the name you've entered doesn't match the account details and isn't even close, you'll be advised to cancel the payment and contact the payee. You can still choose to continue with the payment anyway, but you'll be warned that this is at your own risk.

Nothing much mentioned about it in Pay.UK's most recent news letter, suggesting that implementation has slipped.

Pay.UK's website is at https://www.wearepay.uk/. Perhaps they couldn't get the more obvious pay.uk domain name.

Forwandert

If you do need to change something around for PayPal etc you would be better looking at statutory declarations rather than deed poll name changes.

colsten

Uxb1 wrote: »

As far as I'm aware it won't be a hard check as in it must match exactly
The person doing the transfer will be presented with the name and be asked to confirm it is OK
Think about bank accounts with the name "Prof AD and Mrs PJ Jones Household a/c"
There are so many variations and shortened versions of that account name that just about any hard "must match exactly" check is almost bound to fail.

That's my understanding, too. The new functionality is meant to assist people in making sure they are paying who they intend to pay, rather than forcing them to know the absolutely precise account name of the payee.

confusedfreelancer

It's not a person making the transfers though. It's an automated payroll system.

Tom99

my understanding is that this check is only made when a new payee is set up and not every-time a payment is sent, also as said above, you can still continue with the payment even if the payee name you have used bears no resemblance to the actual account holders name.

colsten

confusedfreelancer wrote: »

It's not a person making the transfers though. It's an automated payroll system.

You'd have to ask the provider of the payroll system whether and how it checks for account names. It would be a massive surprise if they said that the payroll system cannot pay into accounts unless the account name matches 100% perfectly. I reckon it is much more likely for them to say that the system only needs sort code and account number, and ignores the account name.

eskbanker

colsten wrote: »

You'd have to ask the provider of the payroll system whether and how it checks for account names. It would be a massive surprise if they said that the payroll system cannot pay into accounts unless the account name matches 100% perfectly. I reckon it is much more likely for them to say that the system only needs sort code and account number, and ignores the account name.

Agreed - my expectation is that most/many payrolls will still be handled via BACS batch transfers anyway, which I don't believe are covered by the new arrangements proposed for validation of faster payment mandates initiated manually by customers via online banking....

Vortigern

Lloyds or Halifax seem to have introduced a data vet when adding a new payee online via "Pay a Person." It would not let me use eg "Jack & Jill Joint", prompting me to use proper names. This will present a problem where multi-accounters have destinations like MyBoS or MyHSBC. Every payee would be listed as MyFullName. I"d have to view the account number to know which of my accounts I was sending money to.

Tesco does it better, having a field for full name and a field for nickname - the latter being more prominent in the list of payees.

The "Pay a Person" vetting can be avoided by using "Pay a Business"