On 9 October 2025, the requirement for the payment service providers – the financial institutions – to verify the payee's name against its account number before initiating a payment (verification of the payee's name and account number) became uniformly applicable throughout Europe. It serves as an additional security feature aiming to ensure that the payer receives an informative notice on the result of the payee's name and account number verification before executing the payment order and to mitigate the risk of fraud and errors.
Latvijas Banka is one of the two euro area central banks offering the service of verifying the payee's name to payment service providers. The Instant Verification Service is available not only to interested payment service providers from Latvia, but also to those from other European countries.
In spring 2026, the "Payment radar" compiled the results from the first five months of the Instant Verification Service. A population survey on the usefulness of this service was also conducted. Its results confirm that the new security feature has provided practical benefits to the public and has prevented the possibility of payments being made to accounts that do not match the payee's name.
Overall, 57.4 million verification requests were processed in the Instant Verification Service from October 2025 to the end of February 2026. Financial institutions have the option to choose their provider of the name and account number verification service, and two of the major Latvian commercial banks have selected a provider other than Latvijas Banka. For the list of institutions using the service provided by Latvijas Banka, see Latvijas Banka's website.
A survey conducted by SIA Latvijas Fakti in February 2026 shows that 68% of Latvia's population have already noticed the verification of the payee's name and account number when making a transfer online or via a mobile app. Exactly half of these respondents report that the Instant Verification Service and other equivalent services have helped prevent incorrect transfers by alerting them to mismatches between the payee's name and account number. 41% of respondents have not encountered any issues with mismatches between the name and the account number.
Latvijas Banka would like to remind you that introducing the verification of the payee's name and account number improves security and mitigates the risk of fraud by offering the opportunity to stop a payment in cases when fraudsters replace payment details, i.e. when they indicate the name of a payee known to the payer, but replace the account number with one of their choice.