Confirmation of Payee (CoP) has become one of the most important steps forward in payment security for Australia and New Zealand. By ensuring that a payee’s account name matches the details entered by the payer, it reduces one of the most common routes to financial loss: misdirected or manipulated payments. For finance leaders, the message is clear: identity validation is now an expectation, not an optional safeguard.
As Australian and New Zealand businesses expand their supplier networks overseas, a new risk has emerged. Domestic protections such as CoP work well within national payment rails. Once a transaction crosses borders, those same checks often disappear. The result is a growing gap between how fraud is prevented locally and how it unfolds globally.
Local success, limited reach
In Australia, Australian Payments Plus (AP+) has advanced the rollout of Confirmation of Payee (CoP) across major banks to strengthen business-to-customer and business-to-business payments. In New Zealand, the banking sector is developing a similar framework, supported by Payments NZ and the Banking Ombudsman Scheme, to reduce authorised-payment scams. These efforts deserve recognition. They show regulators, banks and technology providers working together to restore trust in digital payments.
CoP has proven its value as a domestic safeguard, but its scope and functionality differ from what is needed to protect international transactions.
The promise and the limits of CoP
Confirmation of Payee helps payers confirm that the account name and number align before funds are released. However, its coverage remains domestic and focused on name matching rather than full business verification.
| What CoP delivers | Where CoP stops |
|---|---|
| Confirms that the account name and number align before payment | Does not verify the identity or legitimacy of the organisation behind the account |
| Reduces accidental or misdirected domestic payments | Covers only local payments; cross-border transactions remain outside its network |
| Alerts users when details do not match | Can add workload for finance teams managing large payment runs |
| Helps confirm that payer details are entered correctly | Cannot detect impersonation attempts or malicious intent behind a payment |
| Builds trust between banks, regulators and customers | Needs complementary controls to validate suppliers and detect data changes over time |
These are not flaws in the framework but reflections of its current purpose. CoP lays a strong foundation for safer payments. Extending that assurance further requires layered, real-time verification across domestic and international transactions.
The Australian Banking Association reported a 13 percent fall in scam losses in 2024 following new measures under the Scam-Safe Accord. Yet losses still reached about NZ$198 million in New Zealand and more than A$100 million in Australia, according to the ACCC and the national cybercrime centre. Progress is visible, but fraud remains a persistent financial risk across the region.
The same factors that make real-time payments efficient, such as speed, accessibility and automation, also make them appealing to fraudsters operating across jurisdictions. Once a payment leaves domestic rails, the visibility that CoP provides often stops at the border. Finance teams are left with manual checks, delayed reconciliations and growing uncertainty about who is actually on the other side of a transaction.
A recent Australian case highlights this growing risk. In January 2025, a court ordered Sydney-based importer Inoteq to repay more than A$190,000 after unknowingly paying a fraudulent invoice from an overseas supplier. This case serves as a reminder that once funds leave the country, recovery options become limited.
Why cross-border continuity matters
Business email compromise, invoice-redirection scams and fake-vendor schemes are now built on global infrastructure: cloud-based domains, AI-generated communications and mule accounts spread across regions. When a supplier sits in another country, even the most diligent teams may struggle to verify the account’s legitimacy before funds move.
As Eftsure CTO David Higgins noted in the Australian Financial Review, “banks are a critical part of the fraud prevention ecosystem, but relying solely on them may leave businesses exposed.” His comments underscore a key point for finance leaders: prevention cannot stop at the banking layer. It has to extend into every part of the payment journey.
CoP confirms that the account name matches locally, providing a vital safeguard within domestic payment systems. However, those checks don’t yet verify the business entity or extend seamlessly once a payment moves across borders.
Extending protection beyond borders
Eftsure mirrors the principle behind CoP but extends it to global supply chains. By validating supplier identities and bank details in real time against a continuously updated network of verified organisations, Eftsure adds the missing continuity layer between domestic systems. The result is a single view of vendor assurance, whether the payment is heading to Sydney, Singapore or San Francisco.
This matters because traditional safeguards such as PDF invoices, call-backs or one-off checks cannot keep pace with today’s transaction speed. A static control only verifies the details once; a continuous network monitors for change.
What finance leaders should do next
- Map supplier exposure. Identify which payments move outside domestic rails and where CoP protection no longer applies.
- Modernise controls. Replace static verification processes with dynamic, system-integrated validation.
- Collaborate across regions. Work with banks, fintechs and regulators to align verification standards internationally.
As global payment reforms such as ISO 20022 expand richer data sharing between banks, the opportunity exists to connect national safeguards like CoP into a continuous global framework.
A collective step forward
Confirmation of Payee has already reduced the risk of misdirected payments and social-engineering fraud across the ANZ region. The next challenge is continuity: keeping that same assurance when payments cross borders.
Building on the spirit of CoP, verification before trust, Eftsure helps finance leaders maintain visibility across every vendor relationship, no matter where it sits in the world.
Book a demo to be among the first to experience cross-border supplier verification.
