📘

This page documents version 2 of the endpoint. Refer to Account Holder Verification (v1) for version 1, including a guide to migrate to version 2.

The Account Holder Verification (AHV) endpoint allows you to verify an account holder's identity before initiating a payment.

This helps reduce fraud and prevents payments from being misdirected, ensuring that payments are sent to the correct recipient or debited from the correct payer account before processing.

Supported verification services

AHV supports the following verification services depending on the payment method / scheme:

• Confirmation of Payee (CoP - UK): used for GBP payments via Faster Payments
• Verification of Payee (VoP - EU): used for EUR payments via SEPA (SCT / SCT Inst / SDD)
• Confirmation of Payee (CoP - AU): used for AUD payments via the Australian scheme (BSB + Account Number)

How it works

After you submit an AHV request, we automatically route the request to the correct scheme (VoP or CoP) based on the verificationAccount details.

You can receive the verification result via:

• the Webhook service (event type: AccountHolderVerification ), or
• by calling the AHV GET endpoint.

The result will indicate whether the provided details return Match, Close match, No match, or Error. See the request example and response example for implementation details. The response may also include a reasonCode and descriptions (depending on scheme and outcome).

Request Rules

When making a request, the following rules apply:

• verificationName must be provided
• verificationAccount must be provided and must include:
  • account: IBAN (for VoP) or local account number (for CoP UK/AU)
  • financialInstitution:
    • optional BIC (for VoP) or
    • Sort Code (for CoP UK) or
    • **BSB (for CoP AU)
  • country: country code of the account (recommended; required where it cannot be derived)
• verificationType
  • Required for CoP requests: must be "Personal" or "Business"
  • Not required for VoP requests

How the verification type is determined from the payload

There is no explicit field in the request to select CoP UK, VoP EU or CoP AU. Instead, the verification type is automatically inferred from the contents of the request:

Important notes:

• IBANs will always be checked using the VoP service, even if they are GB IBANs
• To trigger a request via CoP UK, you must specify both an account number and sort code
• Invalid or mixed combinations will result in a validation error

Reason Codes (CoP Only)

The following reason codes apply only to Confirmation of Payee (CoP) requests. They are defined by the UK CoP scheme and provide additional context on the verification result, indicating the level of match or any issues identified during the verification process.

Note: VoP (Verification of Payee for SEPA) does not provide the same set of granular reason codes as CoP.