Will the Bank's new COP service help NZ Business?

Now that it's public, we can confirm some important points for customers to consider with the NZ Banking Association's announcement of GetVerified. This service will benefit consumers or small businesses that make a single transaction payment with some business banking products.

Where is the GetVerified Service available?

This service is only available in personal mobile or online banking applications.

Checking Payee details:

• If payees are already saved in your online or mobile banking app, the Confirmation of Payee service (GetVerified) will not check them unless you edit the saved payee.
• This service helps check if the account and payee names "Match," "Partially Match," or "Don't Match," with an override option to ignore the result.

Transactions and Payments:

• You will not be prompted to run a confirmation of payee (COP) check when you are paying a payee that has already been saved (whether updated or not).
• If you already have payees saved in your banking platform, their details won't be checked.
• You will also not be prompted if the payment is to an overseas account or an organisation already registered in your bank's payee list (e.g., Council, Power Company).
• Any Confirmation of Payee prompts will only apply to single transactions entered directly into your banking platform when you add a new payee or update an existing payee.  
• Bulk payment (Batch files) will not be checked.
  
  

Important:

• GetVerified (NZ Banking Association) states: "Before you make a payment, make sure you know the account details are correct and pause and consider if you trust the payee. It checks the Payee name when you add or edit a payee's details inside your banking platform."
• A similar service is available for Australian businesses that bank with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (Commbank). It can check bulk payment files for up to 50 transactions, but there are limitations, and false positive alerts can regularly occur.

How could this be useful for you?

If you are a small business, you could use your personal mobile or online banking app to set up a payee and check their details. However, this is not a practical solution if you maintain a master suppliers’ list in your accounting or ERP system.

What impact will it have on you?

If you have customers who use personal banking applications to pay you and don't use your correct payment details (exact legal name), they may be prompted by COP services to check they are paying the right payee. This might result in calls to confirm your correct payee details if they are not clearly stated on your invoices. For example, you may use your ‘trading name’ on invoices, but the bank will check against your company's registered name.

This service has been led by pressure on banks from the NZ government to take some responsibility in helping fight scams. Fraud and scams are quite different; fraud involves illegal access to your information, while scams manipulate victims into willingly giving up their data. Now that banks have a system in place to warn their consumer customers that they should use the service to confirm payments, and the customer doesn't or overrides the check, what will be the bank's position when a scam takes place?