Verification of Payee (VoP) is coming fast, and treasurers need to be ready.
In simple terms, VoP is a check: does the account number you’re paying actually match the beneficiary’s name? The idea is clear: reduce fraud and misdirected payments. For manual one-off payments, that’s great. A treasurer (or AP clerk) gets an instant signal if the account holder’s name doesn’t line up with the intended beneficiary.
But when we zoom out to the corporate world, things get trickier.
How VoP Works
- Every payment instruction is run through a matching engine.
- The bank compares the beneficiary name you provided with the account holder’s name.
- The outcome is either a match, a close match, or no match.
- For no match, banks may block or cancel the payment. For close matches, the treatment differs per bank.
The EU deadline is set (exact go-live dates vary by country and bank, but mid/late 2025 is the target for many). That means every corporate treasury will soon have to deal with this extra layer of control.
Why VoP matters to treasury
Manual & one-off payments: the perfect use case
For urgent ad-hoc wires, VoP provides real-time confidence that you’re paying the right account. Easy, fast, and high value.
Batch payments: the real headache
What if you send a file of 2,000 supplier payments and 10% come back flagged as “no match”?
- Does the bank reject the whole batch?
- Does it cancel the flagged items only?
- What happens to “close matches”?
And most importantly: who corrects them?
Treasury usually doesn’t have the resources (or vendor knowledge) to validate thousands of supplier names. Accounts Payable (AP) owns that data, but will they even know a payment got cancelled unless Treasury tells them?
The smarter play: fix VoP before you pay
Banks typically can’t pre-check vendor files unless a payment is sent.
The smarter approach is to deal with VoP before you send a payment. That means running VoP checks on your vendor master data.
We’ve even heard one treasurer say: “Let’s do a test batch with ALL of my vendors in it.” (Granted, that might be one very big file to process…)
Several specialist vendors exist that let you run proactive VoP checks on your master data. Don’t underestimate the effort: one of our clients needed over six months to get their master data VoP- (and ISO20022-) ready. Structured address fields were one of the biggest bottlenecks.
Opting Out of VoP for bulk payments
There is an option to opt out of VoP for batch/bulk payments. And guess what? Many corporates are already doing it. Some banks even advise it quietly, because they sense the operational chaos that’s coming.
Pros:
- Prevents batch failures during early rollout.
- Reduces operational noise while you clean data.
Cons:
- Less protection against misdirection/fraud in bulk.
- Pushes risk back onto internal controls (vendor onboarding, change controls, callbacks).
Rule of thumb: If your vendor data is immature and payment volumes are high, consider a time-boxed opt-out while you remediate data, paired with stronger supplier onboarding checks.
Your VoP readiness plan (treasury playbook)
So, what should treasurers do?
- Talk to your banks now: how do they treat no/near matches?
- Align with AP: agree on who is responsible for cleaning up master data.
- Test master data upfront: don’t wait until go-live week to see which suppliers fail.
- Decide on your opt-out stance: Is the risk of fraud higher than the risk of operational disruption?
Stop Rejections. Start VoP.
VoP is coming whether you like it or not. The only question is: will you be ready with a strategy, or will you find out the hard way when your next payment run gets stuck?
At Pecunia, we’re already helping clients get VoP- and ISO20022-ready – from cleaning up vendor master data to defining the right treasury/AP split of responsibilities.
If you want to test your data, set up a VoP strategy, or just avoid nasty surprises at go-live, reach out and let’s talk.
