The Bank of Portugal (BdP) hopes that the additional features for national bank transfers that go into effect on the 20th of May will lessen fraud. In actuality, the money recipient will need to certify beforehand, but there are further requirements.
What alters?
Verification of the beneficiary
The name of the person or organisation that will receive the funds shows when a transfer between national accounts is done at a Multibanco ATM. This feature enables the transferee to verify ahead of time that they are sending money to the correct beneficiary before approving the final transfer order.
Bank of Portugal is currently expanding this feature to cover all bank-provided channels, including "homebanking" and the bank's mobile application (app) for customers' smartphones.
In order to verify that the debtor is the owner of the account that is going to be debited, this feature will also be available for direct debits.
According to the Bank of Portugal 2023 Payment Systems Report, which was just released, this service would lessen the chance of delivering money to the incorrect recipients, thereby lowering the danger of fraud.
Transfers using just a phone number
It will be feasible to make transfers between national bank accounts (normal or immediate transfers) starting on the 24th of June (banks will implement this gradually through September) by simply inputting the beneficiary's cell phone number.
Put differently, all transfers between national accounts, whether done over the counter, through home banking, or through the bank's app, now occur on the MBWay network.
The individual making the transfer may only provide the NIPC (company tax identification number) if the beneficiary is a firm.
Users of this system—which is now known as "proxy lookup"—must link their mobile number, which may be a foreign number, to an account.
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