Verification of Payee (VoP)

Verification of Payee (VoP) lets you verify that the name on a customer’s external account matches the actual account holder at the receiving bank before sending funds.

Supported account types

VoP is available for:

Account type	Currency	Identifier
IBAN	EUR	`iban`
UK Sort Code + Account Number	GBP	`gb`

How it works

Create an external account with account_owner_name set
Call the verify endpoint to trigger a VoP check
Poll the external account until the verification completes
Read the account_verification field on the external account response

Trigger a verification

The verify endpoint does not require an Idempotency-Key header. If a verification is already in progress for the external account, the request will return a 409 Conflict error.

Request

curl --location --request POST 'https://api.bridge.xyz/v0/customers/<customer-id>/external_accounts/<external-account-id>/verify' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Api-Key: <api-key>'

Response

{
  "account_type": "iban",
  "account_verification": {
    "iban": {
      "match_level": "pending",
      "reason_code": null,
      "validated_account_owner_name": null
    },
    "requested_at": "2026-01-15T12:00:00.000Z",
    "completed_at": null
  }
}

Reading the result

Once the verification completes, the account_verification object on the external account will be populated with the result:

{
  "id": "c8948ce6-26ac-4d37-a336-742f961a76f3",
  "customer_id": "23c2d400-4c69-4c5a-b31a-88d035d7e8ae",
  "currency": "eur",
  "account_type": "iban",
  "account_owner_name": "Ada Lovelace",
  "account_verification": {
    "iban": {
      "match_level": "match",
      "reason_code": null,
      "validated_account_owner_name": "Ada Lovelace"
    },
    "requested_at": "2026-01-15T12:00:00.000Z",
    "completed_at": "2026-01-15T12:00:03.421Z"
  }
}

Match levels

Match level	Description
`pending`	Verification is still in progress.
`match`	The account owner name matches the account holder at the receiving bank.
`close_match`	The name is a close but not exact match (e.g. minor spelling differences). The `validated_account_owner_name` field will contain the name on file at the bank.
`no_match`	The account owner name does not match the account holder.
`error`	The verification could not be completed (e.g. the receiving bank does not support VoP).

Response fields

The account_verification object contains:

Field	Type	Description
`iban` or `gb`	object	Verification result keyed by account type.
`iban.match_level` / `gb.match_level`	string	One of `pending`, `match`, `close_match`, `no_match`, `error`.
`iban.reason_code` / `gb.reason_code`	string \| null	Additional context from the receiving bank when the result is not a full match.
`iban.validated_account_owner_name` / `gb.validated_account_owner_name`	string \| null	The name on file at the receiving bank (returned on `close_match` or `no_match`).
`requested_at`	string (ISO 8601)	When the verification was requested.
`completed_at`	string (ISO 8601) \| null	When the verification completed. Null while pending.

Prerequisites

The external account must have account_owner_name set.
The external account must be of type iban or gb.
No other verification may already be in progress for that external account.

Error cases

Status	Condition
`400`	Account type not supported for VoP, or `account_owner_name` is missing.
`409`	A verification is already in progress for this external account.

​Supported account types

​How it works

​Trigger a verification

​Reading the result

​Match levels

​Response fields

​Prerequisites

​Error cases

Supported account types

How it works

Trigger a verification

Reading the result

Match levels

Response fields

Prerequisites

Error cases