Confirmation of Payee - is it as poor for everyone else?

colsten

dahj said:

Fingerbobs said:

BrownTrout said:

it only doesnt work with building society accounts where the accounts are one sort code and account number (so using a reference number)

It (sometimes) does work if you select the option for paying a "business" rather than an "individual" (or equivalent terminology) and enter the name of the Building Society as the recipient name.

It doesn't really help identify the end recipient as the account will be 'XYZ Building Society' where a roll/reference number is used. 

It doesn't work with NS&I either

Nor with payments of Barclaycard credit card, or any other payments to accounts which are identified by data in the Reference field.

In addition, many financial institutions don't participate in CoP, even if the accounts can be uniquely identified by a sort code and account number. One example from tonight is the Virgin Money Home Buyer Coach V3 account.

What worries me is that some people are now so intimidated that if the CoP fails, they believe they are unable to make payments.

Fingerbobs

colsten said:

dahj said:

Fingerbobs said:

BrownTrout said:

it only doesnt work with building society accounts where the accounts are one sort code and account number (so using a reference number)

It (sometimes) does work if you select the option for paying a "business" rather than an "individual" (or equivalent terminology) and enter the name of the Building Society as the recipient name.

It doesn't really help identify the end recipient as the account will be 'XYZ Building Society' where a roll/reference number is used. 

It doesn't work with NS&I either

Nor with payments of Barclaycard credit card, or any other payments to accounts which are identified by data in the Reference field.

In addition, many financial institutions don't participate in CoP, even if the accounts can be uniquely identified by a sort code and account number. One example from tonight is the Virgin Money Home Buyer Coach V3 account.

What worries me is that some people are now so intimidated that if the CoP fails, they believe they are unable to make payments.

As mentioned above, if it works then it is still useful in these situations because it's still confirmed 2 out of 3 pieces of information. Without it, none of the information entered would be validated, so it's better than nothing.

That said,  I do concede that it is only helpful if it works reliably, which at present it does not.

cloud_dog

Mostly I find it failing to confirm.  The most frustrating one was setting up a new payee for my brother.  I tried all combinations of his name that are possible, and in the end just sent the money (wasn too much).  When I spoke with him to confirm receipt, he said that the account name was what I had entered initially.  Who knows why it failed.

My biggest fear is that people will become nonchalant about the frequent failures and will simply accept the failure.  The problem is that in doing this we absolve the bank etc of any responsibility, and there really isn't the drive for the banks etc to make the system/level of matching improve; in fact the higher percentage of overridden acceptances there are the lower the liability on the banks themselves.

Armorica

This will change over time. At the moment, COP-able accounts are largely going to be personal and business accounts held at the largest providers.

Overtime, more organisations will add their accounts to COP, and accounts that require the reference field/use 'Head Office Collection Accounts' to be used (which I suspect includes Amex and NS&I) will be added.

Within the industry this is known as 'Phase 2' https://www.wearepay.uk/confirmation-of-payee-phase-2-vendor-seminar-announced/ 

The_Green_Hornet

Ashen said:

colsten said:

EssexExile said:

It's wonderful! I've been distributing my late father's money around the family and I find it very reassuring when sending tens of thousands to know it's going to the right place. Sometimes the account name isn't exactly as told to me but I know that if I have Miss M. Smith and Santander tells me it should be Mary Smith then I have the right place.

You could have sent a one pound test payment to each of the recipients, and waited for their confirmation that they have received the money, if you didn't trust yourself to type the sort code and account number correctly, or if you didn't trust the recipients to be able to give you their correct sort code and account number. This method has been available for a couple of decades already.

Of course that's been possible, but a quick automatic name check is undoubtedly a lot less hassle than contacting the recipient, getting them to to check their bank account, before coming back to you, and doing a second payment.  Also, in my experience, at least some banks hold up a second payment made soon after a £1 test payment, presumably for security checks.

Personally, I have never experienced any problems doing test payments beforehand.

where_are_we

More often than not I get a failed confirmation. I use the Business and building society as a partial compromise. Many of my payments are to just opened accounts - do systems update instantly?

colsten

Armorica said:

This will change over time. At the moment, COP-able accounts are largely going to be personal and business accounts held at the largest providers.

Overtime, more organisations will add their accounts to COP, and accounts that require the reference field/use 'Head Office Collection Accounts' to be used (which I suspect includes Amex and NS&I) will be added.

Within the industry this is known as 'Phase 2' https://www.wearepay.uk/confirmation-of-payee-phase-2-vendor-seminar-announced/ 

What a waste of money and time.

robatwork

As Colsten says - it's crude, and as cloud_dog says the way it's been implemented it will make people blasé (he said a different French word but I prefer mine ) about clicking the check box as it fails so often.

Pretty disappointing considering how late it was - I'm not convinced in its current guise that it's better than nothing.

Still not sure if it's the way Santander have implemented it that has meant I have never had one match or even the option that says "it's close but no cigar".  For it not to work with the country's biggest businesses is, as Private Eye may say, pisspoor.

colsten

robatwork said:

Still not sure if it's the way Santander have implemented it that has meant I have never had one match or even the option that says "it's close but no cigar".  For it not to work with the country's biggest businesses is, as Private Eye may say, pisspoor.

I have had some matches in Santander, when paying businesses (Window Cleaner, House Maintenance etc). I didn't try very hard to get the matches, as I usually ignore the check anyway, but the matches just appeared. 

I would like to see CoP being optional, with the system-wide default being no check. Of course this will never happen, as the main purpose of CoP is to exempt banks from any liability if the customer sends money to a wrong account.

EarthBoy

I'm happy with COP.  It's always worked fine for me when making payments from Lloyds.