The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has fined Bank of Ireland UK for failing to implement Confirmation of Payee by the required deadline.
Confirmation of Payee (CoP) allows people to confirm the account they’re sending money to is the one they expect, helping to combat fraud.
Bank of Ireland UK has been fined £3,779,300 for implementing a system to send requests for Confirmation of Payee (CoP) checks 14 months after the deadline. As a result, the safeguard was not applied to transactions involving more than 1.14 million new payees, with payments totalling approximately £6.9 billion.
BOIUK were directed to have a system in place to send and receive CoP requests by 31 October 2023.
The PSR says payment service providers had "ample time to put the measure in place", after confirming the requirement in October 2022. BOIUK were the last Group 1 payment service provider to achieve compliance.
BOIUK agreed to settle at an early stage of the enforcement decision-making process and therefore qualified for a 30% early settlement discount under the PSR’s settlement procedures, avoiding a larger financial penalty of £5.4m.
David Geale, managing director at the PSR, said: “Confirmation of Payee is a vital tool to combat fraud and misdirected payments, giving people confidence that their money is going exactly where they intend.
“Bank of Ireland UK had plenty of time to put the system in place, missing the deadline by more than a year put its customers at increased risk of fraud. Where we see firms failing to comply with the Confirmation of Payee requirements and leaving customers without this critical protection, we will use our powers to intervene to make sure this important direction is followed.”
