Payment Systems Regulator has fined Bank of Ireland UK £3,779,300 after the lender missed a regulatory deadline by 14 months to implement a key anti-fraud safeguard, leaving more than 1.14 million new payees without confirmation of payee checks on payments worth about £6.9 billion.

The watchdog said the bank had been directed to have systems in place to send and receive confirmation of payee requests by 31 October 2023 but only complied in January 2025, making it the last Group 1 payment service provider to meet the requirement. The regulator opened an investigation on 10 July 2024.

Confirmation of payee allows customers to verify that the name on a recipient’s account matches the details entered before a transfer is made, helping to reduce authorised push payment scams and misdirected payments. The PSR said payment service providers had been given notice of the requirement in October 2022.

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 UK 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.”

The regulator said the original penalty would have been £5.4 million but was reduced by 30 per cent after the bank agreed to settle early in the enforcement process.

A spokesperson for Bank of Ireland UK said: “Bank of Ireland UK 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 spokesperson added that the bank takes its regulatory obligations “extremely seriously” and regrets that the issue arose.

The fine comes as regulators increase scrutiny of firms’ fraud controls, with confirmation of payee forming a central plank of efforts to tackle rising authorised push payment scams across the UK payments system.

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