Financial technology firm Finastra said that its Bacsactive-IP confirmation of payee (CoP) service has gone live with ScotPayments to enable the latter to prevent payments fraud and error.
ScotPayments is a centralised payments platform that supports the digital transformation of Scottish public services.
According to Finastra, its new technology supports businesses to proactively stop fraud and unintended misdirection of funds.
The CoP capability allows users to ensure that they are sending or receiving payments from the right account holder.
It provides clients with confidence in the process while making payments to the people of Scotland, thereby reducing the chances of fraud, and ensuring that funds are not accidentally misdirected.
ScotPayments product owner Sharon Smith said: “CoP is invaluable, not only in making processes more efficient but also in ensuring that payments make it to the recipients as quickly and efficiently as possible.
“These payments are time sensitive and critical – these could range from grants or benefits, staff salaries or supplier payments. This provides peace of mind to the people of Scotland and allows financial and operational staff to focus their resource where it really matters.”
CoP is accessible through the Bacsactive-IP solution in the UK through three separate channels.
These include an open application programming interface (API) module allowing integration into client systems and websites.
CoP is also available during payment file processing before submission to Bacs and while adding and modifying accounts entered in Bacsactive-IP. The capability is said to improve the overall reliability of financial operations.
ScotPayments has leveraged the open API module to easily add CoP capabilities to its service, enabling automated real-time checking and error resolution.
The CoP also supports direct debit and credit users with a proactive approach to error resolution.
By identifying errors at the signup stage, users will be able to easily address issues while engaging with customers on the phone or website.
Finastra payments chief product officer Radha Suvarna said: “Our emphasis on identifying and rectifying issues at the initiation stage underscores our commitment to delivering seamless experiences for our clients.
“The solution taps into our fintech open ecosystem to manage the real-time checks with the account holding banks. This open finance approach is empowering communities and democratising payments.”