Verification of Payee: How Trask and Banfico Transform Payment Verification into Trusted, Efficient Transactions

Through its global partnership with Banfico, Trask brings Banfico’s VOP capabilities to banks and payment service providers as a single, integrated solution with focus on positive customer experience.

The Challenge Many Banks Face: Generic VOP, Data Quality, and Customer Education

Most institutions initially implemented VOP in a minimal, generic way, which can lead to a significant number of transfers failing the name check, resulting in confused customers and overloaded contact centers. It is essential to recognize that the matching engine primarily supports inbound transactions and does not impact the outbound payment journey experienced by a bank's own clients.

However, the success of VOP extends beyond the matching algorithm itself. The quality of data provided by the sender and the receiving bank's data infrastructure are equally critical. Furthermore, a lack of customer education on both the sender's and recipient's side can lead to failed checks and increased operational strain.

Upcoming deadlines in 2027 (for non-euro countries) and the new Payment Services Regulation (PSR), which will apply VOP to all credit transfers, amplify these issues. VOP is quickly shifting from a technical topic into a question of customer trust, operational capacity, and regulatory risk. This is why a “good enough” VOP implementation is no longer sufficient.

Bringing VOP into Real Customer Payment Journeys

Trask connects institutions to Banfico as their VOP service provider. We then embed VOP into customer payment initiation processes and integrate it with account data to enable a smooth matching process.

The effect is clearly visible in live traffic:

Live VOP data from Europe show that a customizable matching algorithm and robust, real-time account access can nearly double match rates and significantly reduce 'unable to respond' cases – directly improving customers trust, and operational efficiency.

—Kannan Rasappan, CEO, Banfico

Measured on real payments, the difference is substantial. 65% of outbound payments are successfully verified through full and close matches. By comparison, leading banks achieve a success rate of over 80% in these same conditions. These figures represent the percentage of payments where recipient details are automatically and accurately confirmed before the transaction is processed.

This performance gap is more than a technical detail, it directly impacts business outcomes and customer satisfaction. A higher verification rate means fewer delayed payments, less manual intervention, and a significant reduction in customer frustration and support calls.  

The “wow effect” here is that Banfico’s advanced engine and strategic implementation deliver materially better results than the market average, providing a tangible competitive advantage and building greater trust across the payment journey.

One VOP Platform with Banfico Proven in the UK and European Union

Banfico’s VOP engine has been proven in live schemes. Originating from Confirmation of Payee (CoP) in the UK, Banfico is recognized as a top-three provider in the UK market. It is also among the first certified Routing & Verification Mechanisms for EPC VOP, establishing Banfico as one of the leading providers in Europe, with nearly 200 clients across the region.

On this foundation, Trask and Banfico provide a solution that banks and payment service providers can deploy across European and American markets, with readiness to connect to additional VOP schemes as they appear. In practice, this means one VOP platform instead of a patchwork of local projects.

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From One-Size-Fits-All to Tuned Matching Rules

The differences in match rates are not accidental. While many VOP solutions use a single, generic name-matching algorithm, this is only part of the story. The outcome of a VOP check depends heavily on the responding bank’s risk appetite, the quality of sender-provided data, and the sophistication of the matching engine. A full match is not inherently “good” and a close match “bad”; the result is a reflection of the bank’s risk appetite.

Banfico’s platform allows matching rules to be tuned for each institution and market. Banks can conduct a detailed review of their response data and, with Banfico, adjust the underlying logic of the decision tree itself. For example, a rule that defaults to a “close match” can be reclassified as a “full match” based on the bank’s specific risk appetite and market realities. This level of customization is key to optimizing VOP responses.

Failed VOP checks - often indicated as "no payee found" or labeled as "NOAP" (Response not possible) - can result in incomplete payments and increased cases requiring manual intervention.  A solid understanding of account data coupled with robust integration and a flexible solution to handle more than one data source directly reduces these occurrences, leading to more matched payments and enhanced operational efficiency.

Turning SEPA VOP Experience into a Customer Benefit for 2027 and Beyond

In July 2027, Verification of Payee (VOP) will become mandatory for SEPA Instant Credit Transfers (SCT Inst) in non-EUR EU countries. However, the next wave will come with the new Payment Services Regulation (PSR), which is expected to require VOP for all credit transfers in the EU by the end of 2028 or early 2029.

Thanks to the partnership with Banfico, Trask clients can leverage real European experience from early adopters. This includes insights into match-rate gaps, issues with accessing account data, and the proven need for bulk VOP checks.  

Based on this, Trask turns VOP into a concrete delivery plan: integrating Banfico’s VOP platform, configuring matching rules to the bank’s risk appetite and data quality, and setting realistic improvement targets based on the numbers above.

—Michal Hladík, Manager in Payments Consulting, Trask

In short, with Trask and Banfico, VOP is not just a compliance checkbox. It becomes a control that protects payments and reputation – and does so consistently across the markets where you operate.

Ready to turn VOP into more seamless, trusted customer payments? Let’s talk