Confirmation of Payee – Countdown to October 2024

Specific Direction 17 from the PSR will add an additional 360 PSPs to Confirmation of Payee by 31^st October 2024, increasing the coverage of CoP to 99% of all CHAPS and faster payments. The ubiquity of this service will definitely add to its success, having already reduced year-on-year APP fraud by 17% in 2023.  

As the participation in CoP significantly scales this year to more than 400 PSPs overall, Pay.UK’s appropriately named ‘CoP Expansion Project’ introduces two key changes to help them manage it. The first will be to replace Open Banking, as the incumbent directory service provider, with a new, longer-term partner. The second is to introduce a new participation model called the ‘Aggregator Model’, where PSPs have the option to join CoP as indirect participants.

Both changes represent a dramatic altering of the roadmap in a very short period of time before the PSR Group 2 deadline. Therefore, the industry, and Group 2 PSPs in particular, must show agility in keeping up with new requirements and tight timelines, and

Best practice guidance recommends all Group 2 PSPs start ‘live’ testing their CoP solutions eight weeks before the 31^st of October deadline. However, as Pay.UK stands up a new directory service provider; the earliest opportunity for new participants to onboard and begin testing will be mid-September, which does raise the stakes.  

This webinar provides a vital opportunity to hear first-hand about the CoP Expansion Project, the PSR mandate, and your options for joining CoP. You’ll get immediate clarity and support from the architects of the CoP initiative, Pay.UK, the Payments System Regulator, and Bottomline, an experienced third-party CoP provider to help ensure a smooth project and implementation and meet the mandate.

• Deep dive: Key updates and ramifications 
• Review of CoP readiness checklist with updated timelines
• How will Pay.UK, the Payment Systems Regulator, and Bottomline support the implementation of CoP in the face of these new changes?
• What is the mandatory reimbursement scheme, and how will it impact PSPs?
• The benefits of CoP beyond the mandate
• What can we expect from the regulator and industry changes in the future?

The key message is that the core CoP solution and the mission remain the same – to reduce APP Fraud and keep customers safe. We as an industry need to work together to manage these even tighter timelines and start our strategy planning now and Bottomline is here to ensure a smooth implementation.