Confirmation of Payee (CoP) regulation: all you need to know

IN THIS ARTICLE

Like it? Share it

The Confirmation of Payee (CoP) was launched in 2020 to reduce payment fraud and errors in the UK. Today, CoP covers over 99% of Faster Payments and CHAPS transactions, with more than 70 million checks completed every month as of mid-2025. The EU has now introduced its own equivalent, the Verification of Payee (VoP), which became mandatory for euro area member states in October 2025.

Trustpair is an anti-fraud solution that goes beyond the CoP. Our platform protects your company from third-party fraud, including international suppliers, thanks to Confirmation of Payee and automated account validation.

Key Takeaways:

The CoP is a UK-based regulation that prevents push payment fraud and payment misdirections.
It’s enforced by PSR and managed by PayUK.
Most PSPs in the country use CoP nowadays.
While useful, this regulation isn’t enough to efficiently protect your business against third-party fraud.
Use Trustpair to ensure you send money to the right recipients, not criminals.

What is confirmation of payee?

Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is a verification system that checks if the name on the bank account matches the name of the intended recipient. CoP is used in the UK for digital payments for both personal and business accounts. To ensure the information is correct, users have to go through it when they:

Send a transfer to a new payee,
Establish a new standing order or direct debit,
Update payee sort code account number to other credentials.

The goal of the confirmation of payee regulation? To lower transfers sent to the wrong account, either through:

Typing mistakes when entering the bank account details (sort code, bank account numbers, and name).
Scams luring victims into sending money, like with Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud.

How does CoP work?

When entering a new recipient’s bank details, the payer must provide the recipient’s name. The CoP service automatically and instantaneously checks whether that name matches the account records at the receiving bank.

There are four possible responses:

YES – All details match (sort code, account number, and name).
NO, BUT CLOSE – The name is a near-match, likely due to a typo (e.g. “John Smithh” instead of “John Smith”).
NO – The account name does not match records.
DATA UNAVAILABLE – There was a system error, or the account is not valid.

If the details do not match, the payer is asked whether they wish to proceed. While the payment sender always has the final say, CoP places the responsibility on the payer to double-check details in the event of any inconsistency (responses 2, 3, or 4).

To be effective, CoP must take place before the payment is initiated. It operates as a peer-to-peer service via API, with no centralised infrastructure.

What is the CoP calendar?

CoP was introduced in the UK in June 2020, initially mandatory for the six largest banks as directed by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR).

The regulation has since been extended in stages:

June 2020: Group 1 (the six largest banks) required to implement CoP.
October 2023: Expanded Group 1 PSPs required to comply.
October 2024: All remaining PSPs handling Faster Payments and CHAPS (Group 2) brought into scope, covering 99% of all relevant transactions.

By July 2025, the volume of CoP checks had grown from 14,000 per month at launch to over 70 million per month — a clear sign of how embedded CoP has become in the UK payments landscape.

The system is now widely recognised as a foundational anti-fraud tool.

The EU has since introduced its equivalent: the Verification of Payee (VoP), which became mandatory for all euro area payment service providers on 9 October 2025 under the EU Instant Payments Regulation.

Non-euro EU member states have until July 2027 to comply. Learn more in our dedicated article: Verification of Payee (VoP): is it enough to fight fraud?

Learn more about VoP in our latest Fraud Flash series!

Which banks are part of the confirmation of payee regulation?

CoP was established by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) and is managed by Pay.UK, which connects payment service providers, businesses, and customers through the CoP framework.

While the major high street banks (Barclays, Halifax, HSBC, Nationwide, and others) were among the first required to join, adoption has since spread broadly. PSPs that are not directly mandated can also voluntarily join via aggregators such as SurePay, Bottomline, and Banfico, which connect third-party providers to the Pay.UK CoP system.

In the EU, the arrival of PSD3 will further reshape the regulatory landscape, with VoP applying to all SEPA credit transfers.

Why is the confirmation of payee regulation not enough to stop fraud?

An incomplete protection

While the Confirmation of Payee regulation was much needed to prevent push payment APP fraud, it isn’t enough to protect businesses against fraud. CoP only checks if the name on a recipient’s account matches with the intended beneficiary. That’s not nearly enough protection against common types of B2B payment fraud, where scammers come up with elaborate payment schemes.

For example in vendor fraud, criminals can create a fake company and ask you to pay for invoices for services or goods never delivered. The CoP would come back clear because the information matches, but it doesn’t help to check if the transaction is legal or legitimate.

Moreover, the CoP regulation only covers transfers sent to the UK. For companies with international suppliers, this creates a massive security gap. Scammers often have bank accounts located abroad, meaning the CoP doesn’t actually protect you against cybercriminal activity. Lastly, CoP still requires manual validation of payments — a task that’s both inefficient and error-prone.

Using Trustpair for Complete Fraud Protection

Fortunately, there is a solution that covers all the failings of the CoP and provides complete protection: Trustpair. Trustpair is an anti-fraud software that secures your payment chain from end to end.

Our solution automatically checks your suppliers’ bank account information to ensure your recipients are who they say they are.

Our software uses three-way matching to establish:

The bank account exists and is valid,
The name is correct,
Both sets of information match.

Where CoP only does a name match, we go in-depth to ensure the validity and legitimacy of the bank account you’re about to send funds to. We go further than CoP as we check account credentials against international databases — making working with vendors abroad 100% safe.

The automated account validation is done in real-time, in the background, so you always know who you’re paying. We use AI to identify suspicious activity and stop any fraudulent-looking transfer from being sent. Using Trustpair is safer and quicker than using manual validation method such as the CoP validation.

Discover how Trustpair’s Confirmation of Payee solution works.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Browse through our different sections and find the answer to your question.

The CoP protocol is a UK interbank messaging standard that enables a payer’s bank to query a payee’s bank in real time before a payment is authorised. It operates via API, is managed by Pay.UK, and returns one of four responses: match, close match, no match, or data unavailable. The protocol applies to Faster Payments and CHAPS transactions.

Yes. CoP is a regulatory requirement enforced by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in the UK. All payment service providers handling Faster Payments and CHAPS have been required to implement CoP since October 2024, covering over 99% of those transactions. Non-compliance can result in PSR enforcement action.

CoP only checks that the account holder’s name matches what the payer has entered. It does not verify whether the company is legitimate, whether the bank account is associated with a genuine supplier, or whether the payment is being directed abroad. Trustpair closes these gaps by validating full account credentials against international databases before every payment.

All major UK banks and PSPs handling Faster Payments and CHAPS are now subject to CoP, following the October 2024 Group 2 deadline. Smaller providers can join voluntarily via aggregators such as SurePay, Bottomline, and Banfico.

You’d like these articles

Uncategorized @gb

6 min

Best Confirmation of Payee Tool: Guide to Reducing APP Fraud

Trustpair news

3 min

Trustpair and Certa Partner to Deliver Best-in-Class Vendor Fraud Prevention and Compliance for Procurement Leaders

Data Management

6 min

ERP Data Migration Challenges And Mitigation Roadmap