Verification of Payee (VoP)
A check that matches the payee's name against the account before a transfer goes out, so a swapped IBAN gets caught in time.
For decades, banks routed transfers on the account number alone and ignored the name typed next to it. Anyone who received a forged invoice with a new IBAN paid the fraudster, and no system batted an eyelid. The UK introduced Confirmation of Payee in 2020, and the EU followed with its Instant Payments Regulation, which requires eurozone banks to offer VoP from 9 October 2025. Countries outside the euro area, such as Sweden, have until July 2027 for their euro accounts.
The answer comes in four flavours: match, close match (which shows the registered name), no match, or check not possible. Customers can still send the money anyway, but now the bank has warned them, and that changes who ends up carrying the loss.