Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is a UK payment verification service introduced by Pay UK in 2020, which checks payee details to prevent misdirected payments and reduce fraud. A Confirmation of Payee API enables you to integrate these checks directly into your payment flows without slowing down your product’s user experience. 

As real-time payments gain popularity, banks and consumers expect the fraud and human-error protection that Confirmation of Payee provides.

To add a CoP API, you’re probably looking for a provider that easily fits into your current infrastructure and can scale with your needs. And if you already have CoP in place, you may want an additional solution that integrates more consistently across your different banking providers. 

That’s what we’ll cover in this guide, including: 

• Confirmation of Payee (CoP): What it is and how it works  
• Common Confirmation of Payee use cases 
• How to implement Confirmation of Payee via API 
• What to look for in a Confirmation of Payee API provider 
• Why choose ClearBank for Confirmation of Payee 
• How ONE.io reduced payment risk and improved customer confidence with Confirmation of Payee

ClearBank is a UK-authorised B2B bank. As part of our services, we offer Confirmation of Payee through an API-first payments infrastructure that integrates directly with your systems.

Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is a verification check overlay service that confirms whether the name provided for a payment matches with the name of the receiving account holder.

CoP is designed to reduce authorised push payment (APP) fraud and misdirected payments by introducing a verification step before funds are sent.

When a user enters a name, sort code, and account number into the platform or app interface, the request is sent to the receiving bank, typically via an API. The bank returns one of three responses:

1. Match: The name provided aligns with the account holder 
2. Partial match: The name is similar, but not an exact match 
3. No match: The name does not match the account details

For example, if a user enters “John Smith” for an account that belongs to “J. Smith Ltd”, the response may be returned as a partial match. And if the account belongs to a completely different individual or business, it will be returned as a no match, prompting the user to stop or review the payment. 

These responses need to be interpreted and presented clearly to users, so they can decide whether to proceed with the payment. For instance, when a user receives a “partial match” response, they can choose to proceed with the payment or terminate it.  

How you present that message can directly influence whether a payment is completed or prevented, as well as how confident the customer feels about using your service. 

Note: In Europe, a similar scheme known as Verification of Payee (VoP) exists for SEPA payments, applying the same principle of verifying payee details before funds are sent. 

The Payment Systems Regulator issued Specific Direction 17 in August 2019, requiring the six largest UK banking groups to implement CoP for online and mobile payments by the end of March 2020.

While the requirement initially applied to the largest banking groups, adoption has extended across the wider payments ecosystem. In October 2024, an extended Confirmation of Payee deadline was set for additional PSPs, including building societies and firms with unique sort codes that participate in CHAPS or Faster Payments. 

Today, CoP is considered a baseline hygiene factor for regulated financial institutions in the UK. 

Even if CoP is not strictly mandated for your business model, you may still need to support it to ensure payments are processed smoothly and meet customer expectations. Many banks now rely on payee verification as part of their risk controls, and payments without it may require additional checks, increasing the likelihood of delays. 

CoP is used across a range of payment scenarios where verifying recipient details before sending funds can reduce risk and improve confidence. 

For example:  

• Consumer payments: When setting up a new payee in a banking app, CoP warns users if the name doesn’t match the account details. This helps them avoid sending money to the wrong person or a fraudulent account. 
• Business payments: CoP verifies supplier or partner account details before sending high-value transfers. This is particularly important when onboarding new suppliers or updating payment details, where the risk of fraud or error is higher. 
• Payroll and payouts: Validates account details before running payroll or bulk payout processes, which reduces the risk of sending funds to incorrect employee or contractor accounts. 
• Emerging and adjacent use cases: Some organisations are exploring how CoP can support additional checks, such as verifying account details during onboarding (for example, as part of KYC or KYB processes) or for high-value transactions like mortgage payouts or property deposits. However, any new use cases require agreement with Pay.UK before they are allowed. 

In most cases, Confirmation of Payee is implemented by sending a request to the receiving bank via an API. 

CoP is a separate layer from the payment itself. You can run a CoP check before initiating a payment, regardless of how or where that payment will be processed. This enables you to incorporate payee verification at different points in the payment journey, such as when a payee is added or before a payment is sent. 

When implementing CoP, you typically have two options: sign up directly to the Confirmation of Payee scheme or access it through an intermediary provider (known as an aggregator).

Direct access means becoming a participant in the Confirmation of Payee scheme. You integrate directly through Pay.UK, which manages UK-based retail payments operations, including Faster Payments and Bacs.  

With direct access, you’re responsible for building and maintaining the infrastructure required to send and receive CoP requests, as well as complying with scheme rules and technical standards. In practice, this typically involves integrating via APIs and managing those connections internally. 

The main advantages are that you have a direct relationship with Pay.UK without relying on an intermediary, and full control over how CoP is integrated into your payment flows, such as when checks are performed and how responses are handled. 

However, there are also some considerations to keep in mind: 

• High upfront build effort: You need to develop and test the full CoP infrastructure before going live, ensuring it meets real-time speed requirements. 
• Ongoing compliance and audits: Participation requires regular engagement with scheme rules, updates, and audits. 
• Operational overhead: Maintaining connections, handling updates, and ensuring uptime adds long-term complexity. 
• Limited ROI: While CoP is typically expected by users and regulators it doesn’t directly generate revenue. 
• Slower time to market: Building direct access can delay product launches compared to integrating with an existing provider. 

As such, direct access makes sense for large banks with existing scheme participation and significant in-house resources and employee time to manage the connection. But the drawbacks mean many organisations choose to work with an intermediary provider.  

Indirect access means integrating with a provider that connects to the Confirmation of Payee scheme on your behalf, rather than becoming a direct participant yourself. Your provider manages the underlying infrastructure, scheme connectivity, and compliance requirements, while you access CoP through a third-party integration. 

Although APIs are the standard way to connect to CoP, some providers offer alternatives such as web interfaces or file-based connections. These are typically used for manual workflows or batch data exchange rather than real-time payee verification.  

Most companies building or scaling payment infrastructure choose indirect access for faster time-to-market and lower operational overhead.

There are many options for CoP, but not all have the same functionality and ease of use. Look for the following when considering your options:

• Simple integration: An API that requires minimal input fields, such as account number and name, and can be implemented quickly without extensive development requirements. 
• Support for multiple banking providers: If you operate across more than one bank, your CoP API should enable a consistent experience without requiring separate CoP integrations for each bank or provider. 
• Handling match responses and user messaging: Your provider should return clear, consistent responses (match, partial match, no match) and support how these are presented to users, helping you reduce confusion and guide decisions at the point of payment. 
• Fits into your existing architecture: CoP should integrate cleanly into your current payment flows, ideally as an extension of your existing API setup rather than a separate build. 
• Scalability and reliability: The service should handle high volumes of requests without impacting real-time performance or availability. 
• Potential for future scheme expansion: If you plan to expand into Europe, consider whether your provider can also support Verification of Payee (VoP) for SEPA payments. 

ClearBank is a UK-authorised B2B bank with direct access to CoP. Through our API-first infrastructure, we provide account services, payment processing, and scheme access, enabling financial institutions and fintechs to build and scale products. 

With ClearBank, you can: 

• Deliver a consistent CoP experience across multiple banking providers: Perform CoP checks across accounts held with different banks through a single API, helping you avoid fragmented integrations and maintain a consistent verification experience. If you plan to expand into Europe, you can also integrate with Verification Of Payee for SEPA. 
• Integrate CoP quickly with a simple, API-first approach: ClearBank’s CoP API requires only a small number of input fields (typically around six), making it straightforward to implement and easy to use compared to more complex alternatives. Because it sits within our existing API, verification can be added to your current integration, without additional setup. 
• Support clear user messaging and better payment decisions: Receive consistent, well-defined responses for end users. These help guide decisions when a “partial match” or “no match” is returned, which increases user confidence at the point of payment.  

Together, this helps customers complete legitimate payments while making it easier for your team to implement and manage CoP. ClearBank was one of the first banks, after the CMA9 to integrate into CoP and is one of the largest providers by volume.

ONE.io is a rapidly scaling fintech offering a unified payments and financial services platform to corporate clients. It needed a way to reduce the risk of misdirected payments and fraud while accessing Faster Payments.  

ClearBank provided ONE.io with Confirmation of Payee, running a real-time check before a payment is sent and verifying that the recipient’s name matches the account details entered. This introduced a verification step directly into the payment flow, helping prevent misdirected payments and improving customer confidence before funds leave the account.  

CoP was included as part of ClearBank’s broader agency banking model, which helped ONE.io grow to offer payments in 12 currencies and offer virtual accounts. 

Read the full case study: ONE.io collaborates with ClearBank to deliver more efficient payment services. 

How you manage CoP across providers and present messaging to users can directly impact both operational complexity and the customer experience. By partnering with an API-first provider, you can add payee verification directly into your payment flows while keeping your architecture simple and scalable.

ClearBank enables you to implement Confirmation of Payee alongside accounts and payment scheme access through a single integration.

To learn more about how you can implement Confirmation of Payee as part of your wider payment infrastructure, reach out to ClearBank.