UniCredit Bank in Romania offers its customers a new facility to verify the identity of the real payment beneficiary with the help of the Beneficiary Name Display Service (SANB in Romanian) through TRANSFOND, which provides this service. The functionality is immediate when a payment is initiated through one of UniCredit Bank’s electronic channels (Mobile/Online Banking or Business Net) and is offered free of charge to customers.
“The Beneficiary Name Display Service aims to prevent fraud among customers who make online payments and reduce erroneous transactions generated by the wrong entry of the beneficiary, the IBAN account. Its database, managed by TRANSFOND, is created based on the information sent by payment service providers in Romania, who have already joined this system,” – explained Cengiz Arslan, Vice President and COO at UniCredit Bank Romania.
“Such frauds can affect public confidence in the banking system and in general in cashless interbank payments. The verification of the beneficiary’s bank details is, at the same time, an important link in the development of new components of the payments ecosystem in Romania, under conditions of full informational security. We invite all banks to participate in this system and collaborate to increase security in interbank transactions,” – said Răzvan Faer, Head of the Development Department at TRANSFOND.
Practically, the Beneficiary Name Display Service ensures the provision and automatic display in the electronic payment order of the payee’s first and last name, when the payer enters the payee’s IBAN account, for payments to individual beneficiaries. In the case of a payment to a legal entity, part of the company’s name will be displayed to the payer for validation. The service is available 24/7 among participating banks.
The Beneficiary Name Display Service is administered by the Romanian Association of Banks as an optional additional service to SEPA RON credit transfer schemes, based on the Convention on National Payment Schemes and the mandate given by the National Bank of Romania.
It is important to note that not all banks in Romania currently offer this facility, which means that, in the case of a payment to an account opened at a banking institution that has not yet joined this service, the name of the beneficiary will not be displayed.
Source: the Bank’s press release dated February 19, 2024
