ACI Worldwide joins forces with Banfico in the fight against APP fraud

Global payments technology company ACI Worldwide has extended its fintech partnership ecosystem, working with Banfico to help fight authorised push payment (APP) fraud in the UK and Europe.

ACI processes account-to-account payments for hundreds of payment service providers (PSPs) in Europe and the UK with instant payments solutions.

By partnering with Banfico, which specialises in regulatory technology, global account verification and Open Banking solutions, ACI will be able to support UK and European banks and PSPs to comply with mandates to offer Confirmation of Payee (CoP) and Verification of Payee (VoP) services.

Under the European Instant Payments Regulation, which was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in early 2024, PSPs will have to offer the VoP service by October this year.

Implementing VoP enables PSPs to confirm account names and numbers prior to executing a transfer and is being rolled out to strengthen payment security in the Single Euro Payments Area, where APP fraud is a growing threat.

Banfico is a Pay.UK-certified CoP aggregator, meaning that ACI can offer CoP services to new and existing Faster Payments customers in the UK.

CoP is a name-checking service for UK-based payments and is designed to ensure consumers are sending payments to the intended recipient.

Pay.UK reported that, as of September 2024, CoP had processed more than 2.5 billion checks since its launch in 2020, and conducts in excess of 2.1 million checks daily.

“Account verification services are a critical component of modern payment systems. VoP is a key requirement as part of Europe’s Instant Payment Regulation. Similarly, in the UK, most major banks and PSPs have implemented CoP to enhance payment security and reduce APP fraud,” said Nick Craig, head of Europe at ACI Worldwide.

“Partnering with Banfico enables ACI to support our customers to adhere to new market and regulatory requirements more swiftly and to make instant payments more secure.”

Kannan Rasappan, chief executive officer of Banfico, added: “Our partnership with ACI Worldwide strengthens Banfico’s commitment to the UK and European market and will enable us to drive innovation in regulatory solutions for banks across the region.”

Further reading: Pay.UK expands CoP to boost ‘collective defences against fraud’