In August 2019, we gave members of the UK’s six largest banking groups a Specific Direction to implement CoP by the end of March 2020. The PSPs subject to the direction are involved in around 90% of FPS and CHAPS transactions.
In July 2020, we confirmed that the directed PSPs had achieved widespread implementation of CoP, with certain agreed exemptions. This marked a significant milestone in addressing APP scams, but we aren’t stopping there. We want to continue to expand the protection offered by CoP, so in February 2022 we issued a Direction to ensure the transition of CoP to a single technical environment (phase 2), allowing more banks to offer the vital service. Following our May 2022 consultation, we also directed around 400 more financial firms to provide CoP. This will see nearly all transactions made via Faster Payments and CHAPS covered by CoP by October 2024.
With CoP, banks can check the name on a new payee’s account as well as the sort code and account number. Customers setting up a new payee (or changing details of an existing payee) will be able to confirm that the name they have entered matches the one on the account they intend to pay, helping to prevent payments going to the wrong account.
Alerts notify the payer whether there has been a match, a close match, or no match, meaning corrections can be made before the payment is sent. The service is designed to prevent misdirected payments as well as fraudulent ones.
The success of CoP depends on PSPs working together to prevent businesses and consumers from being defrauded. With that in mind, Pay.UK has designed rules and standards for PSPs to follow when launching the service.