By PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
BANK of Ireland UK has been fined £3.78 million (€4.33 million) by the Payment Systems Regulator for missing a deadline to introduce an anti-fraud safeguard.
The regulator said the bank introduced a system to send Confirmation of Payee (CoP) requests 14 months late.
“As a result, the safeguard was not applied to transactions involving more than 1.14 million new payees. Payments totalled approximately £6.9 billion,” the regulator said.
CoP lets customers check that the account name matches the intended recipient. This helps reduce fraud and misdirected transfers. Bank of Ireland UK had to put systems in place to send and receive CoP requests by 31 October 2023.
The PSR said Bank of Ireland UK was the last Group 1 payment service provider to meet the requirement.
Bank of Ireland UK issues
David Geale, managing director at the PSR said: “Confirmation of Payee is a vital tool to combat fraud and misdirected payments, giving people confidence that their money is going exactly where they intend.
“Bank of Ireland had plenty of time to put the system in place. Missing the deadline by more than a year put its customers at increased risk of fraud.
“Where we see firms failing to comply with the Confirmation of Payee requirements and leaving customers without this critical protection, we will use our powers to intervene to make sure this important direction is followed,” he said.
The regulator opened its investigation in July 2024. The bank settled early in the enforcement process. It qualified for a 30% discount under PSR procedures. This reduced the fine from £5.4 million.
In a statement, Bank of Ireland UK said it “fully acknowledges and sincerely apologises for the delay in implementing send requests for Confirmation of Payee, which has been in place for all customers since January 2025”.
“The bank takes its regulatory obligations extremely seriously and regrets that this issue arose,” it said.
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