Cross-Border Payment Security: How UK's Confirmation of Payee Is Shaping Global Anti-Fraud Measures

As digital payments accelerate globally, so too do the sophisticated methods fraudsters use to exploit them. The United Kingdom's account name-checking service, Confirmation of Payee (CoP), launched in 2020 by Pay.UK, has emerged as a critical defense against payment fraud, inspiring similar frameworks worldwide. The service's influence extends to the European Payments Council's Verification of Payee (VoP) scheme, which became mandatory across the eurozone in October 2025, demonstrating how international collaboration is gradually building more robust safeguards for the global financial system.

Background and Context

The rapid shift toward instant payments has created new vulnerabilities in financial systems worldwide. While offering unprecedented convenience for consumers and businesses, faster transactions also provide fraudsters with narrower windows for detection and intervention. The UK's CoP system was developed specifically to address these emerging risks by providing greater assurance that payments reach their intended recipients. Since its implementation, the service has prevented countless misdirected payments and reduced instances of authorized push payment (APP) fraud, prompting regulatory action. In 2022, the Payment Systems Regulator mandated industry-wide adoption of CoP by October 2024, ensuring coverage across more than 99 percent of the UK's Faster Payment System through more than 320 participating organizations.

Key Figures and Entities

Pay.UK, the operator of the UK's retail payment systems, developed CoP as an overlay service to the existing payments infrastructure. The organization has worked closely with international counterparts to share knowledge and technical specifications. The European Payments Council (EPC), representing payment service providers across Europe, drew directly on the UK experience when developing its VoP scheme. According to EPC documentation, the council engaged with Pay.UK for over two years through dedicated workshops and technical exchanges to adapt the framework for European markets. The influence extends beyond Europe, with both New Zealand's Banking Association and Australian financial regulators implementing similar systems based on the UK model, with New Zealand's rollout beginning in November 2024 and Australia's following in July 2025.

Legal and Financial Mechanisms

CoP operates as a name-checking service that verifies the payee's name against their bank details during first-time payments, alerting payers to potential mismatches before funds are transferred. The system works through a centralized database that matches account details with registered names, providing real-time feedback to sending banks. Unlike CoP, which primarily checks new payees, the European VoP scheme is embedded directly into the payment process and mandates verification for every instant payment, including bulk transactions. This difference in approach reflects varying technical infrastructures and regulatory requirements across jurisdictions. Both systems, however, share the fundamental principle of adding a verification layer to prevent accidental or fraudulent misdirection of funds, addressing what industry experts estimate to be billions in annual losses globally.

International Implications and Policy Response

The transposition of CoP into international markets highlights growing recognition that payment fraud requires coordinated cross-border solutions. The EPC's decision to model VoP on the UK system followed extensive consultation with Pay.UK, including detailed analysis of technical specifications, operational challenges, and implementation pitfalls. This collaborative approach represents a significant shift from siloed national strategies toward integrated international frameworks. The potential for interoperability between these systems remains under discussion, with payment industry leaders exploring the concept of an "international CoP" that could seamlessly verify payee details across borders. Such a system would add crucial protection against cross-border fraud schemes while maintaining the efficiency benefits of instant payments. The European Union has announced plans to extend VoP requirements to non-eurozone payment service providers by 2027, further standardizing anti-fraud measures across the bloc.

Sources

This report draws on documentation from Pay.UK, the European Payments Council, and the UK Payment Systems Regulator, alongside implementation announcements from the New Zealand Banking Association and Australian financial authorities. Information regarding system specifications and adoption timelines reflects publicly available regulatory filings and industry publications through 2025.