CoP and the £1 test deposit

ColdIron

I have always named the payee for my own accounts what I want it to be. Chase savings, First Direct RS or whatever and just disregard the CoP warnings. It's never been disallowed for me. Otherwise my payee lists, statements etc would be unusable as above. I do have some accounts where I haven't added a new payee for years so maybe I'll hit a bump in the road sometime but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it

RG2015

ColdIron said:

I have always named the payee for my own accounts what I want it to be. Chase savings, First Direct RS or whatever and just disregard the CoP warnings. It's never been disallowed for me. Otherwise my payee lists, statements etc would be unusable as above. I do have some accounts where I haven't added a new payee for years so maybe I'll hit a bump in the road sometime but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it

I have just tried setting up a payee (in my name) in Santander online banking and I can use any name I like.

Obviously, CoP fails if I don't match my name, but I can still use a personal naming convention if I choose to do so.

Molehusband

RG2015 said:

ColdIron said:

I have always named the payee for my own accounts what I want it to be. Chase savings, First Direct RS or whatever and just disregard the CoP warnings. It's never been disallowed for me. Otherwise my payee lists, statements etc would be unusable as above. I do have some accounts where I haven't added a new payee for years so maybe I'll hit a bump in the road sometime but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it

I have just tried setting up a payee (in my name) in Santander online banking and I can use any name I like.

Obviously, CoP fails if I don't match my name, but I can still use a personal naming convention if I choose to do so.

Yes and no. Yes, with Santander you can in theory set up personal payee names but:

1 It restricts the names you can use. I've never found the rules for that as Santander doesn't publish them but certainly the number of characters is restricted and certain characters/character combinations are not accepted. However, you only find out after setting up the name.
2 Unlike the sensible "nickname" facility with Santander,
 (a) only once you've made your first payment will you find out if Santander has altered the payee name.
 (b) Secondly (unlike nickname), having made a payment you can never change your chosen payee name without totally deleting the payee and setting it up again from scratch.
3 As you have already indicated that, since CoP will always fail to validate if you enter your personal name, you have to go back to using the £1 initial payment pantomime to validate your payee.

So the Santander implementation of CoP is extremely poor for those of us who wish to have an optional nickname facility. It certainly takes me back to being obliged using the pre-CoP method for setting up payees.

RG2015

Molehusband said:

RG2015 said:

ColdIron said:

I have always named the payee for my own accounts what I want it to be. Chase savings, First Direct RS or whatever and just disregard the CoP warnings. It's never been disallowed for me. Otherwise my payee lists, statements etc would be unusable as above. I do have some accounts where I haven't added a new payee for years so maybe I'll hit a bump in the road sometime but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it

I have just tried setting up a payee (in my name) in Santander online banking and I can use any name I like.

Obviously, CoP fails if I don't match my name, but I can still use a personal naming convention if I choose to do so.

Yes and no. Yes, with Santander you can in theory set up personal payee names but:

1 It restricts the names you can use. I've never found the rules for that as Santander doesn't publish them but certainly the number of characters is restricted and certain characters/character combinations are not accepted. However, you only find out after setting up the name.
2 Unlike the sensible "nickname" facility with Santander,
 (a) only once you've made your first payment will you find out if Santander has altered the payee name.
 (b) Secondly (unlike nickname), having made a payment you can never change your chosen payee name without totally deleting the payee and setting it up again from scratch.
3 As you have already indicated that, since CoP will always fail to validate if you enter your personal name, you have to go back to using the £1 initial payment pantomime to validate your payee.

So the Santander implementation of CoP is extremely poor for those of us who wish to have an optional nickname facility. It certainly takes me back to being obliged using the pre-CoP method for setting up payees.

What is the sensible nickname facility scheme with Santander?

Daliah

Molehusband said:

RG2015 said:

ColdIron said:

I have always named the payee for my own accounts what I want it to be. Chase savings, First Direct RS or whatever and just disregard the CoP warnings. It's never been disallowed for me. Otherwise my payee lists, statements etc would be unusable as above. I do have some accounts where I haven't added a new payee for years so maybe I'll hit a bump in the road sometime but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it

I have just tried setting up a payee (in my name) in Santander online banking and I can use any name I like.

Obviously, CoP fails if I don't match my name, but I can still use a personal naming convention if I choose to do so.

Yes and no. Yes, with Santander you can in theory set up personal payee names but:

1 It restricts the names you can use. I've never found the rules for that as Santander doesn't publish them but certainly the number of characters is restricted and certain characters/character combinations are not accepted. However, you only find out after setting up the name.
2 Unlike the sensible "nickname" facility with Santander,
 (a) only once you've made your first payment will you find out if Santander has altered the payee name.
 (b) Secondly (unlike nickname), having made a payment you can never change your chosen payee name without totally deleting the payee and setting it up again from scratch.
3 As you have already indicated that, since CoP will always fail to validate if you enter your personal name, you have to go back to using the £1 initial payment pantomime to validate your payee.

So the Santander implementation of CoP is extremely poor for those of us who wish to have an optional nickname facility. It certainly takes me back to being obliged using the pre-CoP method for setting up payees.

I have set up countless payees, to my own accounts, in Santander. There's a lot to be improved with Santander's payee management but I have never come across any restrictions when setting up a new payee, and Santander never altered any of my payee names.

Santander's CoP doesn't always fail - if you enter the correct, or nearly correct, name of the account holder, you get it confirmed (provided the target bank actually participates in CoP). If you wish, you can then immediately go back and change the payee name to one you prefer, repeat the CoP check, which will obviously now fail, but you can accept it anyway. I think this "trick" works with all banks who offer CoP, and saves you from the £1 malarkey.

Molehusband

Daliah said:

Molehusband said:

RG2015 said:

ColdIron said:

I have always named the payee for my own accounts what I want it to be. Chase savings, First Direct RS or whatever and just disregard the CoP warnings. It's never been disallowed for me. Otherwise my payee lists, statements etc would be unusable as above. I do have some accounts where I haven't added a new payee for years so maybe I'll hit a bump in the road sometime but I'll cross that bridge if I come to it

I have just tried setting up a payee (in my name) in Santander online banking and I can use any name I like.

Obviously, CoP fails if I don't match my name, but I can still use a personal naming convention if I choose to do so.

Yes and no. Yes, with Santander you can in theory set up personal payee names but:

1 It restricts the names you can use. I've never found the rules for that as Santander doesn't publish them but certainly the number of characters is restricted and certain characters/character combinations are not accepted. However, you only find out after setting up the name.
2 Unlike the sensible "nickname" facility with Santander,
 (a) only once you've made your first payment will you find out if Santander has altered the payee name.
 (b) Secondly (unlike nickname), having made a payment you can never change your chosen payee name without totally deleting the payee and setting it up again from scratch.
3 As you have already indicated that, since CoP will always fail to validate if you enter your personal name, you have to go back to using the £1 initial payment pantomime to validate your payee.

So the Santander implementation of CoP is extremely poor for those of us who wish to have an optional nickname facility. It certainly takes me back to being obliged using the pre-CoP method for setting up payees.

I have set up countless payees, to my own accounts, in Santander. There's a lot to be improved with Santander's payee management but I have never come across any restrictions when setting up a new payee, and Santander never altered any of my payee names.

Santander's CoP doesn't always fail - if you enter the correct, or nearly correct, name of the account holder, you get it confirmed (provided the target bank actually participates in CoP). If you wish, you can then immediately go back and change the payee name to one you prefer, repeat the CoP check, which will obviously now fail, but you can accept it anyway. I think this "trick" works with all banks who offer CoP, and saves you from the £1 malarkey.

I have been using the Santander payment system for decades before CoP was ever thought about. As I said earlier Santander do not publish restrictions to what you can use for Payee Name. I have discovered the hard way that they restrict both the total length of the Payee name field, the number of words you can use in the field and many special characters are not available. I cannot give you the specific rules as it would take me weeks (or months) to try every conceivable character combination. However Santander never generates an error message and you only find out these name restrictions after you have made the first payment. And I repeat what I said earlier that (unlike nicknames) you cannot change the Payee name field later without starting the Payee setup again.

As regards the CoP validation itself, I never bother to use it with Santander as I'm so used to the £1 pantomime going back many decades. Until Santander get off their backsides and implement the optional nickname field, the Santander £1 pantomime will continue for me.

Daliah

Molehusband said:

As regards the CoP validation itself, I never bother to use it with Santander as I'm so used to the £1 pantomime going back many decades. Until Santander get off their backsides and implement the optional nickname field, the Santander £1 pantomime will continue for me.

It's entirely your right and your choice if you don't want to make life easier for yourself.

Molehusband

Daliah said:

Molehusband said:

As regards the CoP validation itself, I never bother to use it with Santander as I'm so used to the £1 pantomime going back many decades. Until Santander get off their backsides and implement the optional nickname field, the Santander £1 pantomime will continue for me.

It's entirely your right and your choice if you don't want to make life easier for yourself.

I make my life easier by doing the vast majority of my bank transfers using a current account which implements CoP properly by having the optional nickname field.

RG2015

Molehusband said:

Daliah said:

Molehusband said:

As regards the CoP validation itself, I never bother to use it with Santander as I'm so used to the £1 pantomime going back many decades. Until Santander get off their backsides and implement the optional nickname field, the Santander £1 pantomime will continue for me.

It's entirely your right and your choice if you don't want to make life easier for yourself.

I make my life easier by doing the vast majority of my bank transfers using a current account which implements CoP properly by having the optional nickname field.

Which bank is this?

tempus_fugit

Molehusband said:

RG2015 said:

This is interesting. The problem is not with CoP then, but with Santander and the absence of the “nickname” facility.

I have no such problem with NatWest being my main hub, and naming my accounts according to my convention. 

Yes the problem is with the implementation of CoP. Santander is one of a number of banks (including Halifax) who don't seem to understand that many customers wish to have a way of identifying their payees using an optional additional "nickname" field. It should also be possible to alter the "Nickname" at any time without having to reset the Payee. It's a very simple and straightforward thing to add this field, but so far both Santander and Halifax have effectively told me "Push off, we're not interested".
I think it would be helpful if the Payment Systems Regulator would make these layabouts implement the optional "Nickname" field.

That's an issue whether CoP is used or not. I have that issue with a number of my banks, where payees were set up long before CoP came into use. Also, CoP can still be used when making a payment to an account for the first time whether or not there is the option for a nickname to be set. I always use CoP if it is available as it is a handy extra level of checking to make sure you are sending the money to the correct account. After that, if there is no nickname available it is a painstaking process of checking each stored payee's bank details to work out which is the correct one, but I would have this problem whether or not CoP had been used to set it up for the first time.