APP scams and accidentally misdirected payments can cause significant harm to consumers. Confirmation of Payee (CoP) is a service that aims to prevent certain types of scams and misdirected payments from happening. We want everyone to have the same levels of protection and confidence when making payments.

Why we are publishing this document

We want payments to work safely and securely for consumers, including for those that are vulnerable. For this reason, we have consistently considered the widespread adoption of CoP in UK payments to be a key priority. That is why we directed the UK’s six largest banking groups to introduce CoP over FPS and CHAPS transactions in 2020. There are now more than one million CoP requests every day and we want to make it more widely available to other financial institutions and their customers.

Following our consultation at the end of 2021, we have decided to direct Pay.UK to ensure the Phase 1 environment is closed by 31 May 2022. This means that all PSPs will use Phase 2, making sure the service can be available to even more payment systems users.  

What this document contains

We have decided to give the direction, Specific Direction 11 that: 

  • requires Pay.UK to terminate the terms and conditions for participating in Phase 1, withdraw each PSP’s CoP Phase 1 accreditation, and retire the Phase 1 rules and standards on 31 May 2022 
  • requires Pay.UK to notify the OBIE of this action, so the OBIE can close the Phase 1 technical environment
  • requires Phase 1 PSPs to only use the Phase 2 technical for the CoP service after 31 May 2022 
  • requires relevant PSPs to regularly report to Pay.UK on their progress migrating CoP traffic to the Phase 2 Open Banking environment by 1 May 2022, and requires Pay.UK to pass this information to the PSR 
  • requires relevant PSPs to undergo enhanced reporting to both Pay.UK and us if we consider they are at significant risk of failing to migrate by 1 May 2022, with an obligation to implement a remediation plan agreed with the PSR; 
  • revokes SD10 on 31 May 2022. 

This direction will come into effect 11 February 2022. 

Who should read this document

This document is relevant to the payments industry, consumer groups and PSPs, particularly those already involved in our work on APP scams.

What happens next

Existing CoP participants should continue their work to migrate to Phase 2 to ensure that after 31 May 2022, they only send and respond to CoP requests in the Phase 2 technical environment.

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