As of March 2020, a new initiative was introduced by UK Finance called Confirmation of Payee (COP).
COP is a regulatory requirement for the six largest banks in the UK (Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Santander UK);
Metro Bank was not required to join. It is in Metro Bank’s plans to join the scheme however as of today, the bank has not yet signed up.
As a result, when making online payments from the banks listed above to Metro Bank, you may receive warning messages that they are unable to confirm the payee’s bank account details which means they will not be able to verify LCIAD’s account details via the new COP software within their online banking platform;
LCIAD’s account details cannot be checked by their system and matched to our name.
The “unable to verify account details” warning is designed to allow you the opportunity to pause and check the account details you have entered when you are making first-time payments to unknown beneficiaries (i.e. accounts at Metro Bank).
As and when this occurs you will be given an option to confirm the account details are correct and that you are happy to proceed. Please take this opportunity to double-check the account details within the invoice we have provided for you. Once you are comfortable, please accept this option and proceed to payment.
You can read more about the Confirmation of Payee scheme here:
https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/confirmation-of-payee
Verification of LCIAD’s company status can be found here on the Companies House government website:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08208200
Confirmation of Payee explained Nationwide
Confirmation of Payee explained Barclays
Confirmation of Payee explained HSBC
Confirmation of Payee explained Lloyds
Confirmation of Payee explained Halifax
Confirmation of Payee explained Natwest
Confirmation of Payee explained Royal Bank of Scotland
If you have any questions, please get in touch with us
P: 0800 699 0858
Email: info@cscleaners.uk
The message given to us by Metro Bank on this matter is as follows:
“We take our customers’ security extremely seriously and have a range of safeguards in place to help defend against fraud, which we constantly review and update in light of increasingly sophisticated tactics from fraudsters. We continue to keep Confirmation of Payee under review for the future. Metro Bank is a voluntary signatory of the Contingent Reimbursement Model Code, giving customers significantly
increased protection against push payment scams”.
We greatly value your trust in LCIAD and apologise in advance for any inconvenience or doubt this situation might cause. Unfortunately, it is something that is beyond our control at the moment, and we have actively petitioned Metrobank to resolve this issue as soon as possible.
Albena Panteleeva
Director
CS Cleaners Cat Suzet LTD
08208200