When creating a payment order with a European bank, financial apps like Sway are required by EU regulations to perform a Verification of Payee (VoP). This consists of confirming that the payment beneficiary is known by their bank. It is performed via a third-party API, using the information of the selected beneficiary. If all information is correct and the bank is able to answer successfully, the beneficiary is verified for this and future payments.
The verification may, however, fail for several reasons, usually due to erroneous beneficiary data (e.g., wrong legal name or IBAN) or to an API/Bank check failure. If the verification is unsuccessful, the Sway Finance application will inform you before you confirm the payment. In this case, you may choose to either proceed (if you're certain of the information of the selected beneficiary), or to cancel. If you choose to proceed anyway and the data is erroneous, the money may never reach the intended beneficiary and could be unrecoverable. If you cancel, you can go to the beneficiary details and make sure that the data is accurate or correct it if necessary, then start again.
