How to decide if a payment is safe?

Confirmation of Payee lets you check the name of the person or business you are paying when:

• Setting up a new payee, or
• Updating an existing payee

However, it is just a tool for you to check that the name you’ve entered matches what is held by the bank. It’s not a guarantee that your payment will be sent to a legitimate recipient.

When making a payment to a new or updated payee you’ll see whether:

• The account name is a match;
• The account name is a close, but not exact, match;
• The account name is not a match at all; or
• We’ve been unable to check the name.

We may at times explain more information about the result, depending on the reason you’re seeing it. For example, if you’ve chosen to pay a personal account when the payee is a business, we’ll let you know.