Overview

Verification of Payee (VoP) is a service that allows Payment Service Providers (PSPs) to verify that the intended recipient's name matches the account details before processing a payment. This check helps prevent misdirected payments and provides an additional layer of security against.

How VoP Works

1. Payment Initiation: When a customer initiates a payment, they provide the payee's name along with the account details (IBAN).
2. Name Verification: Before processing the payment, the PSP sends a VoP request to verify if the provided name matches the name registered on the target account.
3. Match Results: The service returns one of the following match types:
   • Match: The provided name matches the account holder's name
   • Close Match: The provided name is similar but not identical to the account holder's name
   • No Match: The provided name differs from the account holder's name
   • Unable to Verify: The verification could not be completed
4. User Decision: Based on the match result, the customer can decide whether to proceed with the payment or cancel it.

For more information on VoP scheme within the SEPA area, please visit the EPC (European Payments Council) website at this link.

Implementation of API Flow

The following diagram illustrates the different scenarios, offered in the context of VoP, that the customer can choose to join. The available options are as follows:

1. No VoP verification: this is permitted by the regulations that allow VoP exemption for bulk payments. In order to be enabled, it is necessary to sign a specific agrrement with Sella Branch (Succursale). In this way, no technical changes to existing API implementations are required.
2. Perform VoP verification on a single initialization of each outgoing money transfer. In this context, it is necessary to upgrade the API to the new version that integrates VoP. Two implementations are possible, the difference of which concerns the handling of the VoP response:
   • Waiting for an action: In the case of No Match, Close Match or NA, the Client receives a Bad Request response, the process is aborted and waits for the Client to invoke an API call in order to proceed with the execution of the transfer.
   • Force Response: In the case of No Match, Close Match or NA, the Client receives a Bad Request response, the process is not aborted as it was previously forced into the header of the Money Transfer call which is executed regardless of the VoP result. 

Integration Environments

The VoP service will be available in the following environments to support your development lifecycle: