Beneficiary confirmation and transfers via cell phone number arrive in the coming months

Banks are preparing the implementation of two solutions that will allow customers to confirm the beneficiary of operations such as transfers and direct debits through the various physical and digital channels, as well as carry out transfers only using their mobile phone number or NIPC (identification number of legal person), according to information from Banco de Portugal.

Both initiatives are included in the National Strategy for Retail Payments 2025, released in September last year, which precisely foresees the integration of a “proxy lookup solution within the scope of the Interbank Clearing System (SICOI)” and another for “confirmation of beneficiary” in the context of the same mechanism.

Thus, with a launch date scheduled for May 20th this year, the first of the solutions aims to help minimize the possibility of sending funds to the wrong recipients and combat fraud situations.

In practice, this functionality will allow users to confirm in the various channels provided by national banks – from the home banking service to the app and physical branches – that the beneficiary of a credit transfer (normal or immediate) is the one intended by the payer and that the The debtor of a direct debit is, in fact, the holder of the account to be debited.

The second, identified so far as proxy lookup, will begin to be implemented from June 24th, and is expected to be fully operational by mid-September, and essentially aims to increase the usability and security of credit transfers.

Through this system, it will be possible to initiate normal and immediate credit transfers between accounts – in the case of MB Way, the operations are between cards, so it will be excluded for now – by simply entering the recipient’s mobile phone number or the NIPC of the recipient. beneficiary, without having to enter the IBAN.

As part of promoting greater use of immediate transfers, another of the lines of action foreseen in the aforementioned strategy, the European regulation will impose, from January 9, 2025, prices equal to those for credit transfers, that is, the amount charged for immediate operations cannot be superior to the others.