You've verified someone's identity, but does that necessarily mean your payment is going to the right bank account? It's an important distinction, but it's also one that's easy to overlook.
Identity verification confirms who someone is, while bank account verification checks whether the account they're asking you to pay actually belongs to them. They're two different checks, but many payment processes only cover the first.
And with Australian businesses paying more types of people than ever, that gap creates real risk.
Beyond a business's usual suppliers, there are also contractors, employees, insurance claimants, customers owed refunds and plenty of other individual payees. Each payment relies on bank details someone has provided, but how confident are you that those details belong to the intended recipient?
A verified identity isn't the same as a verified bank account
Identity checks are an important part of preventing fraud. But they don't necessarily tell you whether money is going to the right place.
Take an insurer processing a claim. The claimant's identity is checked against their policy and ID documents. Everything appears to match, so the insurer sends the payout to the bank account listed on the claim form.
But what if a fraudster has gained access to the claimant's account and changed those bank details?
The identity information might still check out. The payment, however, could end up in the fraudster's account. The genuine customer is left without their payout, and the insurer may have to pay the claim again.
It's a similar story with supplier payments. A business can verify a new supplier's identity and registration details without ever confirming who owns the nominated bank account.
And the risk doesn't disappear once a supplier has been onboarded.
Business email compromise (BEC) scams often involve criminals impersonating trusted suppliers or taking over their email accounts to request changes to payment details. According to the National Anti-Scam Centre, payment redirection scams cost Australians $166.8 million in 2025.
What makes these scams particularly difficult to catch is that the relationship itself may be genuine. Your team knows the supplier. You've paid them for years. So when an email arrives asking for a routine update to their bank details, it might not raise any immediate concerns.
That's exactly the familiarity fraudsters exploit.
Two questions every payment process needs to answer
Before you release a payment, you need to know two things:
- Are we paying the right person or business?
- Does the bank account actually belong to them?
The first question is familiar territory for most finance teams. The second is where things can get complicated.
Many processes rely on the bank details a payee provides, without independently checking whether those details match the intended recipient.
Even a follow-up phone call isn't necessarily enough.
Say your team receives an email from a supplier requesting a change to their bank account. Someone calls the number in the email to confirm the request. The person on the other end says everything is correct.
But if the email was fraudulent, who's to say the phone number wasn't changed too?
That's why independent verification matters.
Using contact details you've previously verified, or obtained from a trusted source outside the payment request, is a much stronger approach than relying on the information supplied in that request.
Independent bank account verification adds another layer of protection by checking whether the nominated account belongs to the intended payee.
The goal is simple: catch a mismatch before the money leaves your business, not after.
Where payment processes can fall short
Most businesses have some form of payee verification in place. The problem is that those checks don't always happen when they're needed most.
A supplier might go through a thorough onboarding process. An employee might provide identity documents when they join. But what happens when either of them changes their bank details six months or three years later?
If the new details aren't independently verified, those original checks won't protect against a fraudulent account substitution.
That's why verification needs to happen both when a payee is first set up and whenever their payment details change.
There's also the question of consistency.
In larger organisations, payments can come from several different teams. Accounts payable handles suppliers. Payroll manages employees. Claims teams process insurance payouts. Customer service or finance teams might manage refunds.
Each team may have its own way of checking payment details, often involving manual steps.
That leaves plenty of room for inconsistency. One team might follow a strict verification process, while another relies on an email confirmation. And without a central record, it can be difficult to establish exactly what was checked, by whom and when.
A more consistent approach helps finance teams reduce that uncertainty, without making every payment a lengthy manual exercise.
How Eftsure helps verify the person and their bank account
A stronger identity check is useful, but it doesn't solve the whole problem. You also need confidence that the bank account belongs to the person or business you're paying.
This is where Eftsure can help. For supplier payments, Eftsure verifies business identities and independently checks bank account details before funds are released.
Now, Eftsure also supports verification for individual payees.
Using a network of connected banks and identity reference sources, Eftsure checks whether the bank account provided belongs to the individual you're intending to pay. Your team receives a clear verification result before releasing funds, with each check recorded as audit-ready evidence.
That means you can bring independent bank account verification into payment processes that go well beyond traditional accounts payable, including claims, payroll and customer refunds.
Eftsure's individual verification is available now in Australia for Australian individual payees, through an API that integrates with your existing payment workflows. In-platform access is planned for early 2027.
If your business pays individuals, verifying their identity is only half the job. You also need to know you're paying into the right account.
Book a demo to see how Eftsure can help secure your payments.
