How to secure your payments with Confirmation of Payee

Confirmation of Payee (CoP) helps prevent you from paying the wrong person.

It checks the details you're paying against the details held by the payee's bank, so you can have confidence that your money is going to the right place.

As fraudsters often use fake names, these checks add an extra layer of security to stop you being scammed.

How to use Confirmation of Payee

Confirmation of Payee works for Faster Payment, CHAPS or Bacs payments made through your Tide app by following these steps:

Add someone as a payee by adding the name on their account, their account number, sort code and account type (personal or business).

Start making a payment by choosing the amount you wish to send them and when you'd like it to be sent

CoP checks the details by cross-referencing the details you've added with those registered to the payee's account

You'll see the outcome of the check, and you can choose whether to make the payment or not

What the Confirmation of Payee checks mean

Complete match

A partial match

No match

Wrong details

Not able to check

How to use the right name with Confirmation of Payee

Sometimes the name registered to the account won't be the payee's personal name.

When making a payment

For example, a sole trader called John Smith could be trading as 'John's Plumbing', and the account will have the trading name registered.

It's best to check with your payee which name is registered to their account before making a payment.

When receiving a payment

As a sole trader, your personal name is registered to your Tide account, and you should provide this to customers when asking for payment.

If you want your trading name to be registered to your account, you can verify this in your Tide app:

Go to the Pay tab and tap the profile icon in the top righthand corner

Tap Profile & settings > Business details > Trading name > Verify now

We'll review this and let you know within 48 hours whether its been verified

For example, if your name is 'John Smith' and your trading name is 'John's Plumbing', completing these steps will let you provide your name as 'John Smith trading as John's Plumbing'. This helps ensure a full match with CoP when customers are paying you.