Electronic verification

Hi
Now I’ve switched to Monzo I’m trying to change my nominated bank account details with AJBell to Monzo. Is there a reason that they can’t electronically verify the bank? When I was with Santander they electronically verified that the account was in my name and the address matched (I believe they use Equifax - as my employer does for our clients too).

2018-09-07%2010_01_47-Change%20your%20existing%20bank%20details

Thanks
Matt

I don’t know how electronic verification works, though I’d have thought maybe transferring a penny would work?

More broadly, though, AJ Bell might be decreasing its own risk by asking you to email statements, but by doing so they’re significantly increasing yours. Email isn’t secure, and I’d be very unlikely to email anything like a bank statement. They should really know better - normalizing this increases the risk for everyone.

I had to do the same thing :slight_smile: They were very quick once I’d done it but it was annoying that I couldn’t email it to them

I just emailed them a PDF statement and they came back within an hour confirming my account had been updated

I have a feeling they check any bank accounts you hold with credit reference agencies? Monzo only report to CallCredit (which I think changed it’s name recently), so if they don’t use CallCredit they won’t be able to see your account…

This is however, just a theory.

Liam

They wouldn’t let me do that :thinking:

I’m not sure that’s right - AJ Bell is an investment broker. I suspect that this will be for AML compliance :+1:

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Yes, but they might use the data from the CRA’s to confirm the bank account is definitely yours, hence why they were able to verify @mjw1987’s Santander account electronically without additional data.

Like I said though, just a guess.

I think it is related to this: Vanguard needing to verify Monzo accounts

So I’ve had the same issue with Property Partner and Equiniti.
I’d have thought Monzo would be a prime candidate for verifying electronically as a new bank.

Is this anything Monzo can work on?

There are a number of databases companies use for verification, people need to get past the fact they only hear of Experien, Equifax and CallCredit (TransUnion) there are a number of other big companies that do verification services in the UK. It is impossible for any Bank to update each individual database there are literally hundreds, over time they will get updated. Insurance companies have a specific database they use, there is fraud databases and so on, many are registered for verification services/

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