Comfortable isn’t the same as good: why it’s time to change your CoP provider
You know the pair. The shoes at the back of the cupboard you reach for without thinking – moulded to your feet, been everywhere with you. You’ve noticed they’re tired: the sole’s worn thin, the support’s gone. But the thought of breaking in something new is enough to make you reach for the old ones […]
The corporate isn’t in the room – and you can see it in how UK payments get built
At the close of a recent obconnect roundtable, one line landed harder than anything in the preceding hour: whatever gets built in the next payments MVP, “if the corporate’s not in the room, they’re going to build it around the consumer.” It was said almost in passing, on the way to goodbyes. But it’s the […]
Is this “CoP 2.0”? What might come after Confirmation of Payee – and why banks should be watching
Confirmation of Payee changed UK payments for the better. By checking that a payee’s name matches the account before money moves, CoP has stopped countless misdirected and fraudulent payments. But fraud has adapted – and the landscape keeps shifting. So a fair question is starting to surface across the industry: what comes next, and could […]
APP Fraud Reimbursement: Name-Checking as Fraud-Cost Control
£354 million refunded to scam victims last year – name-checking is now the cheapest insurance a bank can buy In 2025, UK banks reimbursed £354.3 million to victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud. That is not a compliance statistic. It is a line in the cost of fraud – money that left bank balance […]
Commercial VRP & UKPI: A New UK Payment Scheme Explained
The UK just launched its first new major payment scheme since 2008 — and most businesses have no idea On 2 June 2026, the UK switched on its first new major payment scheme since Faster Payments in 2008. It’s called commercial Variable Recurring Payments – commercial VRP, or cVRP – and it’s operated through a […]
CoP Migration in Under Two Weeks: The Zopa Bank Story
Two years ago, obconnect was lucky enough to begin working with Zopa Bank. They’d come to obconnect to migrate away from their existing Confirmation of Payee provider. The reasons were their own. But we knew they needed an expedited delivery. What mattered was the brief: move them onto obconnect’s CoP, cleanly and quickly, without drama. […]
obconnect, Raidiam & PayPoint: UK Energy Data Consent
Some partnerships are engineered. The best ones tend to grow. A few years ago now, we started working with the team at Raidiam. This was well before our New Zealand chapter. Raidiam were making their first moves into South America, and obconnect happened to be able to assist them in a few areas. We lent […]
The Hidden Cost of Payment Failures: Why Reliability is a Revenue Issue
Payment failures are often viewed as a technical issue. A temporary glitch. A connectivity problem. Something for the engineering team to resolve behind the scenes. But for businesses – particularly those operating at scale – payment failures are something far more significant. They are a revenue issue. Because every failed transaction represents more than a […]
The Rise of Account-to-Account (A2A) Payments: What UK Businesses Need to Know in 2026
For years, account-to-account (A2A) payments have been discussed as the next evolution in how money moves. Efficient. Direct. Cost-effective. Yet for a long time, they remained just outside the mainstream – widely understood within the industry, but not fully embedded in everyday business operations. That is beginning to change. As we move through 2026, A2A […]
Building Societies and Open Banking: Unlocking Growth Without Losing Identity
In a financial landscape often dominated by large banks and fast-moving fintechs, building societies occupy a unique and important position. They are not just financial institutions.They are communities. Rooted in mutual ownership and built on long-standing member relationships, building societies operate with a fundamentally different purpose – one that prioritises trust, stability, and long-term value […]