Bottomline introduces its confirmation of payee (CoP) solution for businesses; arming corporate fraud teams with an efficient way to fight authorised push payment (APP) fraud.
CoP for Business by Bottomline seeks to better protect company payments against APP fraud by verifying the recipient’s bank account.
APP fraud is what happens when a fraudster manipulates someone into making large bank transfers to them. Usually, the attacker will impersonate someone from a bank or trusted organisation to dupe someone into making a payment to them.
According to UK Finance, losses for APP fraud stood at £583million in 2021; up 22 per cent from the year previous. This behaviour spilt into last year too, with a reported £249million in recorded losses throughout the first half of 2022.
In light of these alarming figures, the UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has been working double time to mitigate APP risks. Combatting this type of fraud defined the regulator’s activities last year. In May, it gave specific directions requiring approximately 400 payment service providers (PSPs) to implement a system to offer CoP to their customers. The PSR continues to expand its CoP initiative.
Despite this progression, Colin Swain, Bottomline’s global head of platform and product transformation, believes more can be done to combat APP fraud.
“While the PSR has already mandated that financial institutions incorporate CoP into their consumer banking services to help prevent APP fraud, we believe more can be done,” comments Swain. “Using our API first technology, companies of all sizes can now better safeguard their own business payments using CoP for Business.”
Closing the gap against fraudsters
As cases of APP fraud continue to rise, CoP directs payments to legitimately owned bank accounts.
Instant and batch transactions are automatically verified via direct-to-source bank account checks rather than via intermittently updated third-party bank account databases.
Bottomline’s CoP for Business offers a viable alternative to traditional bank account verification methods. It provides near 90 per cent coverage of personal and business accounts. In this way, finance teams can feel confident they are dealing with the genuine account holder, thus preventing fraud attacks and avoiding the cost of recovering incorrectly processed or irrevocable payments.
“In 2022, 29 per cent of companies interviewed in the Business Payments Barometer admitted they were victims of fraud, claiming a 10 per cent increase in fraud losses versus 2021,” continues Swain.
“So, beyond what banks offer, it’s on companies to ensure their payments are safe and legitimate. CoP for Business gives them peace of mind and the arsenal needed to wage war on financial fraud.
“Uniquely, CoP has over 90 per cent bank account coverage, meaning fewer manual checks for corporate fraud teams. With the PSR forecasting CoP bank account coverage to extend beyond 99 per cent by October 2023, the benefits for companies are clear to see,” he concludes.
