Validate an account name (CoP/VoP)

Use the Business API to validate an account name before adding a counterparty or making a payment.

What is account name validation?​

Account name validation is a feature that helps you prevent misdirected payments. It checks if the name of your recipient (payee) matches the name registered with their bank account.

This type of check is often referred to as Confirmation of Payee (CoP) or Verification of Payee (VoP), after the names of the regional services it relies on to perform this check. We'll use "CoP" for short as the general term for these services.

You can perform this check at two key moments:

• Before making a payment to a new or existing counterparty.
• When adding a new counterparty.

You can make checks for both individual counterparties (personal accounts) and companies (business accounts), provided that their bank and account type support CoP.

How CoP works​

Supported regions and services​

The validation is performed using a single endpoint. The required details depend on the region, currency and type of the recipient's account. Based on the details that you provide, the endpoint routes to the correct underlying service.

*EEA ∩ SEPA, CH, and UA. For brevity, we'll refer to it as "EUR" or "Europe" in this guide.

Other currencies, regions, or combinations of those are not supported.

Service limits​

The number of checks is limited per business as follows:

• Per minute:

  • Australia: 10 validations
  • Other supported regions: 60 validations

• Per day:

  • All supported regions: 10000 validations

If you need to increase these limits, please contact our API Support team.

Make a validation request​

To validate an account's name with the Business API, make a request to the /account-name-validation endpoint. This endpoint routes to the correct service based on the details you provide.

Required details​

When making a validation request, depending on the region, currency and type of the recipient's account, you must provide the following details:

{
  "account_no": "12345678",
  "sort_code": "54-01-05",
  "individual_name": {
    "first_name": "John",
    "last_name": "Smith"
  }
}

Validation results​

The response depends on the underlying service.

For request and response models:

See the API reference: Validate an account name (CoP/VoP)

Sandbox​

Keep in mind that the Sandbox cannot be used for actual validation.

Glossary​

This section presents the external services that the account name validation relies on, depending on the region and currency. It is meant as a brief overview, and should not be treated as formal or exhaustive definitions.

CoP (UK)​

Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is an account name checking service in the UK that helps payers make sure local payments in GBP aren't sent to the wrong bank or building society account.

It checks the recipient's name against the account's sort code and number, and uses a "traffic light" system to indicate whether they're a match, close match, or no match. It is only available to UK-based businesses, for accounts that support CoP.

CoP (AU)​

Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is an account name checking service in Australia that helps payers make sure local payments in AUD aren't sent to the wrong bank, building society, or credit union account.

It validates the recipient's name against the account number and BSB (Bank-State-Branch) code, and uses a "traffic light" system to indicate whether they're a match, close match, or no match. It is only available to businesses based in Australia, for accounts that support CoP.

SANB, BNDS, CoP (RO)​

Serviciul Afișare Nume Beneficiar (SANB), or Beneficiary Name Display Service (BNDS) in English, is an account name checking service in Romania that helps payers make sure local payments in RON aren't sent to the wrong bank account. It is only available to businesses based in Romania, for accounts that support this service.

In response to provided name and IBAN, it returns a truncated version of the recipient's name – the first name and initial for personal accounts or part of the company's name for business accounts – for the payer to validate them.

In our API documentation, we'll refer to it as CoP (RO).

VoP​

Verification of Payee (VoP) is an account name checking service in Europe that helps payers make sure that EUR payments in supported European countries aren't sent to the wrong payment account.

It checks the recipient's name against the account's IBAN, and uses a "traffic light" system to indicate whether they're a match, close match, or no match.