Verification of Payee (VoP) in Corporate Payout API: FAQ – Nordea Open Banking Support

Reference:

Is the following understanding of VoP correct?

The introduction of VoP requirements for the Corporate Payout API means that some payments may require additional signing if their VoP result is CLOSE_MATCH, NO_MATCH, or NOT_AVAILABLE. Payments that require additional signing due to VoP will have the payment_status_reason "info.payment.vop_confirmation_required" and status AUTHORIZATION_PARTIAL. Such payments must be signed twice: the first confirms the creditor, the second allows execution of the payment. Via the Corporate Payout API, there is currently no mechanism to confirm the validity of a payee's account number and name without initiating payments, nor any method that provides JSON responses for such validation.

The number of signing requests required depends on the rights of the holder of the signing key and the result of the VoP. Besides this, the understanding is correct. Please see:

Payment Flow (Corporate Payout API)

Note: Verification of Payee (VoP) is required for SEPA payments (both SEPA classic and Instant) initiated from Nordea Finland accounts.

How does the NOT_AVAILABLE status work?

The NOT_AVAILABLE status informs you that we are not able to perform a verification of payee. When you receive this status, it is up to you whether you want to sign the payment and thereby accept that we perform the payment without VoP. For example, you may choose to verify the account by contacting the payee in these cases, or you could perform the payment even if VoP was not available.

You sign the payment via the signing endpoint:

PATCH corporate/premium/v2/payments/<payment_id>/sign

Providing VoP for SEPA payments is a regulatory requirement for Nordea, and we are therefore required to inform you when VoP is not available.

The NOT_AVAILABLE status does not indicate a technical issue with Nordea or the infrastructure used. VoP is not yet supported by all countries and accounts in the SEPA scheme. Therefore, it may be the case that the particular account is not yet supported by VoP.

How to understand the requirement to "double sign" payments?

The additional signature is used when the VoP status is anything other than MATCH. The additional signature confirms that you want to perform the payment.

Please refer to:

Payment Flow (Corporate Payout API)

Corporate payout API examples

Do you have any specific instructions for sandbox testing?

When using the sandbox, you trigger one of the non-matching VoP responses by adding the header X-Response-Scenarios with one of the following values. Add the header in the Payment Initiation request.

verificationOfPayeeCloseMatch
verificationOfPayeeNoMatch
verificationOfPayeeNotAvailable

Please refer to:

Payment Initiation (Corporate Payout)

When a payment has a status other than MATCH, is it necessary to request the specified endpoint twice?

PATCH corporate/premium/v2/payments/<payment_id>/sign

In the production environment, if a payment receives a VoP result other than MATCH, the following process applies:

First, any user with access to the debtor account must sign the payment. The payment status changes to AUTHORIZATION_PARTIAL without indicating that VoP signing is required.
Secondly, the payment requires additional signing by the creator (the user who initiated the payment).

If the creator has "act alone" rights, the payment proceeds with processing.
If the creator has "two together" rights, the payment remains on AUTHORIZATION_PARTIAL and requires an additional signature from a second user.

This process means that when the creating user has "act alone" rights, one could request the said endpoint twice. However, we recommend first checking the payment status to confirm the initial signing was successful.

We are testing a payout from our Nordea Client Account to our Nordea Corporate Account in Finland. We are receiving the following error message in response to our request: 'We could not compare the recipient name with the account holder name. Confirming the payment may lead to transferring funds to an account not held by the recipient you indicated.' From our perspective, we are sending the correct information. Both the recipient name and account holder name should be 'B***B'. What might be causing this error?

Initial payout request and response:

Endpoint: /corporate/premium/v2/payments

Request body:

{"amount": 0.1, "currency": "EUR", "external_id": "8ffeb***bec5", "template_id": "SEPA_INSTANT_CREDIT_TRANSFER_FI", "creditor": {"account": {"type": "IBAN", "value": "FI67***36"}, "message": "RF24***20", "name": "B***B"}, "debtor": {"account": {"currency": "EUR", "type": "IBAN", "value": "FI89***28"}}, "end_to_end_id": "T32***2"}

Response:

{'group_header': {'message_identification': '2a627eae2df21681', 'creation_date_time': '2025-12-02T14:11:51.502896682Z', 'http_code': 201}, 'response': {'_id': '70468b6c-***-812e620f4185', 'template_id': 'SEPA_INSTANT_CREDIT_TRANSFER_FI', 'external_id': '8ff***ec5', 'end_to_end_id': 'T32***2', 'amount': '0.1', 'requested_execution_date': '2025-12-02', 'currency': 'EUR', 'urgency': 'INSTANT', 'debtor': {'account': {'value': 'FI89***28', 'type': 'IBAN', 'currency': 'EUR'}}, 'creditor': {'account': {'value': 'FI67***836', 'type': 'IBAN'}, 'name': 'B***B', 'message': 'RF24***20', 'bank': {'bic': 'NDEAFIHHXXX', 'country': 'FI'}}, 'status_timestamp': '2025-12-02T14:11:51.487989', 'create_timestamp': '2025-12-02T14:11:51.487988', 'payment_status': 'PAYMENT_INITIATED', 'payment_status_reason': 'info.payment.vop_confirmation_required', 'verification_of_payee_result': {'status': 'NOT_AVAILABLE'}, '_links': [{'rel': 'self', 'href': '/premium/v2/payments'}, {'rel': 'sign', 'href': '/premium/v2/payments/70468b6c-***-812e620f4185/sign'}, {'rel': 'cancel', 'href': '/premium/v2/payments/70468b6c-***-812e620f4185/cancel'}, {'rel': 'details', 'href': '/premium/v2/payments/70468b6c-***-812e620f4185'}]}}

Afterwards, we fetch payment details to see the status:

Endpoint: /corporate/premium/v2/payments/70468b6c-***-812e620f4185

Response:

{'group_header': {'message_identification': '2a627ede2df21681', 'creation_date_time': '2025-12-02T14:11:51.931065575Z', 'http_code': 200}, 'response': {'_id': '70468b6c-***-812e620f4185', 'template_id': 'SEPA_INSTANT_CREDIT_TRANSFER_FI', 'external_id': '8ff***c5', 'end_to_end_id': 'T32***2', 'amount': '0.1', 'requested_execution_date': '2025-12-02', 'currency': 'EUR', 'urgency': 'INSTANT', 'debtor': {'account': {'value': 'FI89***28', 'type': 'IBAN', 'currency': 'EUR'}}, 'creditor': {'account': {'value': 'FI67***36', 'type': 'IBAN'}, 'name': 'B***B', 'message': 'RF24***20', 'bank': {'bic': 'NDEAFIHHXXX', 'country': 'FI'}}, 'status_timestamp': '2025-12-02T14:11:51.717864', 'create_timestamp': '2025-12-02T14:11:51.487988', 'payment_status': 'AUTHORIZATION_PARTIAL', 'payment_status_reason': 'info.payment.vop_confirmation_required', 'payment_status_reason_description': 'We could not compare the recipient name with the account holder name. Confirming the payment may lead to transferring funds to an account not held by the recipient you indicated.', 'verification_of_payee_result': {'status': 'NOT_AVAILABLE'}, '_links': [{'rel': 'self', 'href': '/premium/v2/payments/70468b6c-***-812e620f4185'}, {'rel': 'sign', 'href': '/premium/v2/payments/70468b6c-***-812e620f4185/sign'}, {'rel': 'cancel', 'href': '/premium/v2/payments/70468b6c-***-812e620f4185/cancel'}]}}

It indicates that the verification was not possible - the name and IBAN could not be validated. There may be various reasons for this failure:

Technical error - in case one of the providers in the VoP process is having technical problems, it is not possible to perform verification.
Recipient's account is held in non-euro country - The VoP process was implemented in October 2025 only in those countries whose home currency is the euro. Other EU countries will implement VoP of payee by 2027 at the latest. The country where an account is located can be identified from the IBAN number. For example, accounts located in Finland begin with FI, whilst accounts in Sweden begin with SE. For this reason, payments to other Nordea units in the Nordic region are not verified.
No outgoing SEPA payment has been sent from the account outside Nordea - in the first implementation phase of VoP, this response will also be provided in cases where no payments have been sent from that IBAN outside Nordea Finland. Examples include new accounts or accounts where money is only received and funds are transferred to another Nordea Finland account. In the second implementation phase, these accounts will be identified and the relevant matching response will be provided. This situation is also common with many other European banks. If the owner of such an IBAN wishes their account to be identified in future VoP requests, they can send one payment outside Nordea Finland from that IBAN. This will resolve the situation, and subsequent requests will receive the proper matching response for the payer.

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