What is required for implementation?

On the bank’s side, there are two important things to consider.

First of all, the API that allows for Account Name Verification has to be integrated into your online banking environment.

Secondly, data provisioning has to be taken care of. This concerns the provisioning of customer data by your bank to SurePay so that SurePay’s algorithm can match the payment data to your bank’s customer data. Further information on required implementation efforts can be found in the sample Implementation Plan

What is the IBAN-Name Check or Confirmation of Payee exactly?

When making a transfer online, the IBAN-Name Check and the SurePay Confirmation of Payee verify entered account details of the beneficiary prior to the actual transfer. The verification is based on the unique combination of the account holder’s name information beloning to a specific account number. The payer’s bank sends the entered account name and number to SurePay, which in turn verifies the details against the available data in order to provides a response. Should entered details be incorrect (i.e. the beneficiary name does not match with the names known at the bank for this account number), then the payment initiator will get a notification. The payer might be at risk of payment fraud or possibly has made a mistake.

The IBAN-Name Check is tailored for the Dutch market and the SurePay Confirmation of Payee adheres to UK market requirements, rules and regulations.

Which notifications can I get?

Should entered account details match the information known at the bank for the relevant account number, generally no notifications are prompted. When this is not the case, you can distinguish three main types of notifications:

Warning

When the entered name does not match with the account information known at the relevant bank by any means – for instance ‘D. Williams’ instead of ‘K. James’ – a warning notification is prompted. Please be aware that you might be subject to a scam, fraud or may have made a mistake. The notification will tell you that the account holder is registered under a different name at the relevant bank. Consider alternative measures or get in touch with the beneficiary before proceeding to transfer any funds.

Name Suggestion

In case of minor errors, such as a typo, you will be prompted with a suggested name as registered at the relevant bank. For instance, ‘Williams’ instead of ‘Wiliams’. Please check whether the suggested name belongs to the person/company you are intending to transfer funds to.

Service Not Available

SurePay verifies account numbers and their information across its base. In case SurePay is not able to verify account details against an account number, you will be notified as well. This can, for instance, occur for foreign bank accounts numbers for which SurePay may have insufficient information available.

Do I have to apply to use the service?

No, you don’t. SurePay’s Account Name Verification service is not a separate app, nor programme. Your own bank can opt to integrate SurePay’s Account Name Verification service in its online environment, and make it available to you. The service generally works for online transfers and is commonly made available through a regular banking application.

Currently, SurePay’s services are only available to customers of the larger banks in the Netherlands.

To whom is SurePay’s IBAN-Name Check service available?

At the current moment, SurePay’s IBAN-Name Check service is exclusively available to customers of these Dutch banks: Rabobank, ING Bank, SNS Bank, Regiobank, ASN Bank, ABN AMRO & Knab. Other financial institutions in the Netherlands have not yet implemented our services, but are planning to do so.

Businesses and organisations can also implement the IBAN-Name Check in their own business processes and systems, regardless of what bank they use.

When and why do I get to see a notification?

Notifications only appear in the payment initiation screen, prior to sending through your payment, and appears right after you have completed the fields beneficiary name and account number (IBAN). On the background the check is carried out instantly without any noticeable delay.

Notifications only appear should your entered beneficiary details differ from their registration at the relevant bank. When the beneficiary details you’ve entered correspond to the details of the back account holder at the bank of registry, no notification is given. If the entered beneficiary details contain a typo or rather small deviation from the actual registration, you will be prompted a clickable name suggestion.

What should I do with a notification?

In case you are not able to further verify the beneficiary details in your online banking environment, please contact the beneficiary to cross check the account details. You are responsible for they payments and transfers you make – even when a notification is prompted.

How does the check perform the matching?

SurePay’s Account Check deploys an intelligent algorithm that compares the user’s entered beneficiary details against the SurePay database, which contains data from several sources such as connected banks and the Dutch Chambers of Commerce.

The service takes advantage of multiple data fields of the beneficiary’s bank of registry in order to match with users’ input. The outcome can be a match, a near match or a non-match, in which case the user can be prompted with a notification.

For its operations, it is important that SurePay’s service has access to complete and up-to-date client records of connected banks. Ensuring this will help to prevent fraud and payment misdirection.

What happens with my customer data?

In order to ensure high quality matching, the SurePay algorithm needs access to the verified customer data of the bank that has issued the account. For business accounts, SurePay retrieves additional trade names as registered at the Chambers of Commerce, for the registry number that the banks hold in their files for their business customers. This is important because payments to trade names should not lead to a warning notification.

SurePay closes agreements with connected banks for the provisioning of customer data, in which purpose limitation is included and clearly described. Meaning that the data you provision as a bank will strictly and solely be used for the agreed purposes.

How do end-users experience the service?

The user has always been at the centre of what we do. In designing and building SurePay’s Account Name Verification service we have considered the fact that end-users would always like an uninterrupted and pleasant payment experience. Hence, the check is performed instantly and highly reliable. Moreover, the user always remains in charge. Meaning that regardless of any notification prompted, the user may always choose to continue the transfer.

In line with strict policies and regulations, we never disclose any personal information on private bank accounts in our notifications, unless we’re certain that the user has made type when entering the beneficiary details.

Our Account Name Verification solution has undergone thorough testing by thousands of users. This has allowed us to bring to market an even better version of our service right away.

What are the costs of Implementation?

We deliver a quotation based on your needs, and therefore refrain from stating exact rates. We do, however, provide further information on how our prices are set and what they’re based on.

For banks, prices are roughly built up of a one-off connection fee and a per-call fee to our API, which is based on the aggregate number of transactions over a period of time. For banks who provision their data as well as consume our API, there are significant price reductions available. Please contact an account manager for further enquiries.

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