Overview

Verification of Payee (VoP) is a banking security scheme that helps protect customers from certain types of payment fraud. It’s a name-checking system that allows payment initiators to verify that the beneficiary account details they are entering match the name of the intended recipient as held by the beneficiary’s bank.

The European Payments Council (EPC) owns and publishes the Verification of Payee (VoP) rulebook. VoP is a requirement for financial institutions in SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) countries and the UK, as mandated by the EU Instant Payments Regulation and the UK Payment Systems Regulator, respectively. The regulatory requirement to use VOP applies to both SEPA Credit transfers and to SEPA Instant Payments.

Before submitting a transaction, the payment initiator is presented with the results of the VoP request: this could be a "Match", a "Close Match", a "No Match" or that verification was not possible. If a "Close Match", "No Match" or verification not possible is returned, the the payment initiator may proceed with the payment but they will be warned that there is a risk that the account details they are using do not belong to the individual or organisation whose name they have supplied.

The payer’s Processing Entity and the payee’s Processing Entity interact via "Requestor" and "Responder" services which may communicate through a Routing and/or Verification Mechanism (RVM). The below diagram depicts the flow of a VoP request through the Requester and Responder services:

IPF offers both a VoP Requester service and a VoP Responder service. These services can work together or in isolation, and the client can choose to take either of these or both.