Introduction to Payer Name Verification
Please note: Payer Name Verification is only available to verify payers for the following bank debit schemes: Bacs in the UK
Payer Name Verification automatically checks that your payers’ names match the name on the bank account details submitted when setting up BACS Direct Debits with you. This will reduce your exposure to fraud, chargebacks, and is aligned to what your payers experience in their personal banking.
Today we offer a suite of tools to protect you from fraud, such as modulus checking, Verified Mandates and GoCardless Protect+. With the addition of Payer Name Verification in the UK, we're adding enhanced, built-in protection for all UK payments.
Around 12% of all direct debits are incorrectly set up with payer details that don’t match the account. These can either be due to attempted fraud or simple human-error, but either way the result is a large proportion of chargebacks due to lack of payer authorisation.
Now with Payer Name Verification you can decrease your risk of fraudulent or incorrect direct debit set-ups and also reduce your rate of chargeback requests.
Getting set-up to use Payer Name Verification
Please note: Payer Name Verification is only available to verify payers for the following bank debit schemes: Bacs in the UK
If you use GoCardless via our hosted experiences, you will have Payer Name Verification enabled by default and can begin using it in your live environment.
If you use GoCardless via our custom integrations, you will need to set this up to start benefiting. You can do this via our updated Developer Documentation.
Implementing Payer Name Verification
If you are using our hosted experiences through Billing Request Flows, Payer Name Verification will happen automatically when a payer enters their bank account details. When incorrect details are added, the payer will see an error, and have the opportunity to try entering their details again. If there is a match, the payer will be able to create a mandate as per usual.
For custom integrators, Payer Name Verification can work in two ways:
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If using the Billing Requests API, Payer Name Verification will automatically apply to every new mandate, and the result will be returned in a validation error.*
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You can choose to use the Bank Details Lookup Endpoint to submit the account details and name, and then choose how to handle the response.
*Note: PNV must be enabled on the organisation level, this will happen by default for all new Billing Request API integrators (from the 24th of April 2024). We strongly suggest that all integrators use PNV, however, if you would like this disabled or enabled please reach out to support@gocardless.com.
Please contact api@gocardless.com if you require assistance with the API.