Please delete my forum account delete delete delete delete delete runabout outside

masonic

Deleted_User said:

masonic said:

Deleted_User said:

masonic said:

eskbanker said:

Deleted_User said:

I'm interested to hear the suggestion that Santander might allow it. I've just logged in (online on PC) and followed the "Amend Payee" dialogue but, as expected, the only field I can amend is "Reference" with all the others being locked. Do you have a magic key that allows any other fields to be amended?

I'm referring to the initial process of setting up a payee....

So then Santander does in fact allow nicknames, leaving only Halifax of the banks identified in this thread, which does not.

Well, I'm not aware unless there is a new magic Santander bank (or Bank account) which has just appeared on the scene? I've just viewed my Santander accounts on screen and as far as I can see, payees all still only have the same old user fields ie:

Sort Code

Account Number

Account name

Reference

Which has been unchanged for years. Please tell me where I might locate a further field that is in effect a nickname or similar?

You enter those details (with the account name matching), go to the next screen where you get feedback from CoP - hopefully that it is confirmed, then you change the account name to whatever you like before confirming the new payee. The nickname is the account name itself, rather clever really.

Aha, there's not actually a nickname field at all but in effect it's equivalent to the £1 pantomime I've been running for years where all my Santander payee "Account names" are actually used in the "Aunty Flo" manner! But I now see that the Santander "amendment" is just a very quick one-off click. Better than nothing I suppose, but I'd much prefer if "amend" facility was available later on too, but then I've found no other bank which offers that either.

One of the possible scenarios is where the payee changes their name. So that if Aunty Flo gets married and changes from "Florence Nightingale" to say "Florence Clutterbuck" without changing account number. Will CoP pick this up and reject further payments after that name change?

It saves you doing the "£1 pantomime" and removes the risk of you even losing £1 if you get the details wrong. I agree being able to change it later would be a 'nice to have', for example if you open a second savings account with a provider and named the first one with just the provider name, it might be nice to rename it, you could always adopt colsten's foolproof system to prevent that issue from arising.

It doesn't matter if someone changes their account name. The CoP check is done once and only once when the payee is first created. Even if you switch your account to a new bank (transferring payees across), you'll be able to continue using the same details without any warnings or rejections.

EarthBoy

masonic said:

eskbanker said:

Deleted_User said:

eskbanker said:

... unless you adopt the approach suggested by another poster earlier of initially validating accounts with CoP and then going back and editing the payee name to use your preferred unique nickname.

On my Santander & Halifax accounts, once I have set up my payees and created a payment I cannot go back later to edit them. If I want to change the details I have to delete the payees and set them up from scratch.

Out of curiosity, I just tried it on my Santander account online banking (I don't have a Halifax account) and the workaround works fine, as long as you edit the name before creating the payment, i.e. use CoP to validate the payee and then choose a nickname, before proceeding to make the first payment.  Job done - no sweat....

I've just checked and it doesn't work on Halifax (at least not on the app), no option to edit the name once verified or step back and change it without re-entering the account number and sort code. Though being able to check, then go back and start again with a nickname could still be of some value.

It does work on the Halifax app, you're just not doing it right. You set up the payment and let COP confirm the details. At this point you must click the back button to return to the previous screen. If you don't click the back button, then you can't edit the name.
When you go back to the previous screen all the details you've entered are still there, and you just change the account name to whatever you want it to be. When you click continue Halifax performs COP again, and this time you'll get a rejection because the name is wrong. However, this doesn't matter because at this stage you know they're correct.

I've just tried this and it definitely works.

schiff

Back when you could have 7-8 Virgin regular savers open at the same time, my SOs and FPs started with Virgin 16, Virgin 17, Virgin 19 and so on. They would fail the COP stage but having carefully verified that I'd got all my sort code and account numbers correct, I carried on, bypassing their system. Same with other payments that required three lines of figures - sort code, their own account, my account.
Worked OK for me.

masonic

EarthBoy said:

masonic said:

eskbanker said:

Deleted_User said:

eskbanker said:

... unless you adopt the approach suggested by another poster earlier of initially validating accounts with CoP and then going back and editing the payee name to use your preferred unique nickname.

On my Santander & Halifax accounts, once I have set up my payees and created a payment I cannot go back later to edit them. If I want to change the details I have to delete the payees and set them up from scratch.

Out of curiosity, I just tried it on my Santander account online banking (I don't have a Halifax account) and the workaround works fine, as long as you edit the name before creating the payment, i.e. use CoP to validate the payee and then choose a nickname, before proceeding to make the first payment.  Job done - no sweat....

I've just checked and it doesn't work on Halifax (at least not on the app), no option to edit the name once verified or step back and change it without re-entering the account number and sort code. Though being able to check, then go back and start again with a nickname could still be of some value.

It does work on the Halifax app, you're just not doing it right. You set up the payment and let COP confirm the details. At this point you must click the back button to return to the previous screen. If you don't click the back button, then you can't edit the name.
When you go back to the previous screen all the details you've entered are still there, and you just change the account name to whatever you want it to be. When you click continue Halifax performs COP again, and this time you'll get a rejection because the name is wrong. However, this doesn't matter because at this stage you know they're correct.

I've just tried this and it definitely works.

Thanks, yes you are correct, I didn't even notice there was a back button in the top-left indicated by a '<' (the top-left back button does not appear when on the equivalent screen and paying an existing payee, and in that scenario the UI back button cancels and takes you back to the app's home screen. I was expecting the same behaviour for a new payee).

This thread has certainly been useful for me as I now know how to set account nicknames while getting the benefit of CoP for all banks.

masonic

Deleted_User said:

There's still a couple of serious glitches in the implementation of CoP which apply to all banks and not just Santander & Halifax. This is when setting up a new payee and performing the "Account Name" check where the name you provided will either say that it matches or doesn't match.

1 There is one potential serious problem that hasn't been thought through properly. It is when the receiving bank is not a part of the CoP system. For example, I opened a new Coventry Building Society account recently. Coventry supplied me the Sort Code & Account number for paying in and there was no "Reference" code which many Building Societies use. I proceeded set up a new payee giving the details supplied by Coventry but I was taken aback to be told by CoP that "Account Name" didn't match. So I assumed it was my mistake in having a senior moment while entering incorrect information. But whatever I did it kept telling me I had entered incorrect information.

Eventually in checking with the bank I was informed the reason for CoP rejection was because Coventry is not a registered member of CoP and therefore the check will always fail.

My question is why doesn't the CoP check tell customers this so as to avoid wasting their time? I consider it a very poor implementation that CoP doesn't inform customer that the receiving bank is not a registered member of CoP. Nowhere during the payee setup process was I informed of this. I was obliged to resort to the £1 pantomime

2 The second subtle problem is with people having different variants of their name. For example a man called Edward may refer to himself as "Ted" in public and a woman called Margaret may normally call herself "Peggy". Also many people have a middle name which most of their acquaintances don't know about. So if my friend calls himself George Smith but his bank account has the name "George Michael Smith", will I be rejected by CoP for failing to entering his middle name? Will I be penalised for setting up "Peggy Smith"?

Eskbanker posted a series of links yesterday that address both of these points. There is an active consultation on the first point going on right now, it is not an issue that has not been thought through, it is one that was specifically acknowledged and deferred in order to get phase 1 rolled out so as to allow people to benefit in the simpler scenarios while the other details are worked out. For the second point, if you get the name nearly right, such as Ted Smith instead of Edward Smith, then you will be told the actual account name and can either continue with this or continue with what you entered. Again this is explicitly covered in one of the links Eskbanker posted about how the system works.

masonic

Deleted_User said:

masonic said:

Deleted_User said:

There's still a couple of serious glitches in the implementation of CoP which apply to all banks and not just Santander & Halifax. This is when setting up a new payee and performing the "Account Name" check where the name you provided will either say that it matches or doesn't match.

1 There is one potential serious problem that hasn't been thought through properly. It is when the receiving bank is not a part of the CoP system. For example, I opened a new Coventry Building Society account recently. Coventry supplied me the Sort Code & Account number for paying in and there was no "Reference" code which many Building Societies use. I proceeded set up a new payee giving the details supplied by Coventry but I was taken aback to be told by CoP that "Account Name" didn't match. So I assumed it was my mistake in having a senior moment while entering incorrect information. But whatever I did it kept telling me I had entered incorrect information.

Eventually in checking with the bank I was informed the reason for CoP rejection was because Coventry is not a registered member of CoP and therefore the check will always fail.

My question is why doesn't the CoP check tell customers this so as to avoid wasting their time? I consider it a very poor implementation that CoP doesn't inform customer that the receiving bank is not a registered member of CoP. Nowhere during the payee setup process was I informed of this. I was obliged to resort to the £1 pantomime

2 The second subtle problem is with people having different variants of their name. For example a man called Edward may refer to himself as "Ted" in public and a woman called Margaret may normally call herself "Peggy". Also many people have a middle name which most of their acquaintances don't know about. So if my friend calls himself George Smith but his bank account has the name "George Michael Smith", will I be rejected by CoP for failing to entering his middle name? Will I be penalised for setting up "Peggy Smith"?

Eskbanker posted a series of links yesterday that address both of these points.

How many normal bank customers know about these links as they are not publicised anywhere on the websites of all the banks I use?

Most banks have written their own guides and/or give help within online banking and their apps, for example, here is the Halifax guide: https://www.halifax.co.uk/bankaccounts/help-guidance/online-banking-help/confirmation-of-payee.html and here is the one for Santander: https://www.santander.co.uk/personal/support/fraud-and-security/making-a-new-payment

It is natural for banks to provide their own digest of the information that has been vetted by their own compliance team. For normal bank customers who want further information, there is no requirement to rely on eskbanker, he is just a convenient and reliable source for those on MSE forums. Many normal bank customers will be acquainted with the use of a search engine, within which they could type "confirmation of payee" and be presented with this information and more.

Deleted_User said:

Why doensn't CoP do the obvious thing and, when a check fails, either say

"account cannot be check as it is not part of CoP system"? or

"Please consult expert Eskbanker for further details"?

From the Santander guide "4. We can’t check the account: If the type of account doesn’t support the checks or there’s a technical issue we’ll tell you."

I do think you should contact the banks and recommend they implement the second message. They'll probably agree with you that it's a good idea and if enough people express an interest they'll look into implementing it.

Notepad_Phil

Deleted_User said:

2 The second subtle problem is with people having different variants of their name. For example a man called Edward may refer to himself as "Ted" in public and a woman called Margaret may normally call herself "Peggy". Also many people have a middle name which most of their acquaintances don't know about. So if my friend calls himself George Smith but his bank account has the name "George Michael Smith", will I be rejected by CoP for failing to entering his middle name? Will I be penalised for trying to set up "Ted Smith" and "Peggy Smith"?

This is how we get around the lack of Santander nicknames. I.e. we put something like "Phil Notepad V6" as the payee and it will then usually come back and say the account is actually "Phil Notepad" should it continue?. That way we've a list of payees with a small code at the end to differentiate them from each other.

It's not perfect as sometimes COP does just say the account name doesn't match, but then we just do the £1 test payment.

pafpcg

Deleted_User said:

masonic said:

Deleted_User said:

There's still a couple of serious glitches in the implementation of CoP which apply to all banks and not just Santander & Halifax. This is when setting up a new payee and performing the "Account Name" check where the name you provided will either say that it matches or doesn't match.

1 There is one potential serious problem that hasn't been thought through properly. It is when the receiving bank is not a part of the CoP system. For example, I opened a new Coventry Building Society account recently. Coventry supplied me the Sort Code & Account number for paying in and there was no "Reference" code which many Building Societies use. I proceeded set up a new payee giving the details supplied by Coventry but I was taken aback to be told by CoP that "Account Name" didn't match. So I assumed it was my mistake in having a senior moment while entering incorrect information. But whatever I did it kept telling me I had entered incorrect information.

Eventually in checking with the bank I was informed the reason for CoP rejection was because Coventry is not a registered member of CoP and therefore the check will always fail.

My question is why doesn't the CoP check tell customers this so as to avoid wasting their time? I consider it a very poor implementation that CoP doesn't inform customer that the receiving bank is not a registered member of CoP. Nowhere during the payee setup process was I informed of this. I was obliged to resort to the £1 pantomime

2 The second subtle problem is with people having different variants of their name. For example a man called Edward may refer to himself as "Ted" in public and a woman called Margaret may normally call herself "Peggy". Also many people have a middle name which most of their acquaintances don't know about. So if my friend calls himself George Smith but his bank account has the name "George Michael Smith", will I be rejected by CoP for failing to entering his middle name? Will I be penalised for setting up "Peggy Smith"?

Eskbanker posted a series of links yesterday that address both of these points.

How many normal bank customers know about these links as they are not publicised anywhere on the websites of all the banks I use? Why doensn't CoP do the obvious thing and, when a check fails, either say

"account cannot be check as it is not part of CoP system"? or

"Please consult expert Eskbanker for further details"?

Yes, that is indeed what I do!

OK, I may not be a "normal bank customer" and by using MSE's forums, I get the advice of others as well as Eskbanker on the many occasions I've needed help in the last few years. Thanks everyone!

I trust you too have appreciated the help which you've received here with your CoP problem.

masonic

Deleted_User said:

masonic said:

Deleted_User said:

Why doensn't CoP do the obvious thing and, when a check fails, either say

"account cannot be check as it is not part of CoP system"? or

"Please consult expert Eskbanker for further details"?

From the Santander guide "4. We can’t check the account: If the type of account doesn’t support the checks or there’s a technical issue we’ll tell you."

So when a bank is doing the CoP job and is unable to check the payee's name because the receiving financial institution does not support the checks why don't they say in a straightforward manner:

"account cannot be checked as it is not part of CoP system"

instead of leaving their customer wondering if they have given the wrong account number? It's so obvious that even a schoolchild could do a better job explaining to the customer why the CoP check failed in this instance.

What's wrong with "We weren't able to check if that name and account number match. This type of account cannot be name checked but may be added in the future"?

In fact, no need to answer. I think I've gone as far as I can with you on this journey of discovery. Your requirement to specify the exact wording of a response is a step too far, I'm out.

RG2015

Deleted_User said:

pafpcg said:

Deleted_User said:

masonic said:

Deleted_User said:

There's still a couple of serious glitches in the implementation of CoP which apply to all banks and not just Santander & Halifax. This is when setting up a new payee and performing the "Account Name" check where the name you provided will either say that it matches or doesn't match.

1 There is one potential serious problem that hasn't been thought through properly. It is when the receiving bank is not a part of the CoP system. For example, I opened a new Coventry Building Society account recently. Coventry supplied me the Sort Code & Account number for paying in and there was no "Reference" code which many Building Societies use. I proceeded set up a new payee giving the details supplied by Coventry but I was taken aback to be told by CoP that "Account Name" didn't match. So I assumed it was my mistake in having a senior moment while entering incorrect information. But whatever I did it kept telling me I had entered incorrect information.

Eventually in checking with the bank I was informed the reason for CoP rejection was because Coventry is not a registered member of CoP and therefore the check will always fail.

My question is why doesn't the CoP check tell customers this so as to avoid wasting their time? I consider it a very poor implementation that CoP doesn't inform customer that the receiving bank is not a registered member of CoP. Nowhere during the payee setup process was I informed of this. I was obliged to resort to the £1 pantomime

2 The second subtle problem is with people having different variants of their name. For example a man called Edward may refer to himself as "Ted" in public and a woman called Margaret may normally call herself "Peggy". Also many people have a middle name which most of their acquaintances don't know about. So if my friend calls himself George Smith but his bank account has the name "George Michael Smith", will I be rejected by CoP for failing to entering his middle name? Will I be penalised for setting up "Peggy Smith"?

Eskbanker posted a series of links yesterday that address both of these points.

How many normal bank customers know about these links as they are not publicised anywhere on the websites of all the banks I use? Why doensn't CoP do the obvious thing and, when a check fails, either say

"account cannot be check as it is not part of CoP system"? or

"Please consult expert Eskbanker for further details"?

Yes, that is indeed what I do!

OK, I may not be a "normal bank customer" and by using MSE's forums, I get the advice of others as well as Eskbanker on the many occasions I've needed help in the last few years. Thanks everyone!

I trust you too have appreciated the help which you've received here with your CoP problem.

There's no doubt that the links published by Eskbanker are useful and I thank him. However, the fact remains that out of the millions of normal bank customers few will have read through all those links. In any event, if a CoP check fails because the receiving financial institution does not support the checks, why can't these millions of normal customers be told:

"receiving account cannot be checked as it is not part of CoP system"

without the customer having to spend hours worrying that the rejection was caused by them suppling the wrong account details?

Even without the help of forum users, I find NatWest very easy to understand. There are four responses for a CoP check.

1. It's a match
2. It's not a match
3. This account can't be checked
4. It's a close match 

(For example)

Full name

J Blogs

Your payee details are not confirmed. That's because there is a different name on record for this account.

Did you mean?

J. BLOGGS
(Drop down menu)

Please select…

Yes, keep it
No, change it

This all seems very clear to me, and as I said in an earlier post, once verified you can choose any name you like for your Payee List. eg J. Bloggs TSB no.1 a/c

I cannot comment on all banks, but NatWest are not making a mockery of anything.