Sending money to a new recipient for the first time: a checklist

The first payment to a new recipient is the riskiest one you will make to them. Not because it is large, but because everything about it is untested: the account details, the name, the route, the way the receiving bank behaves. By the third transfer, most of that is known. On the first, it is all assumption.

A short checklist is therefore worth more here than it would be later. What follows is the reasoning behind each item, so that you can adapt it rather than merely tick it.

Why the first transfer is different

Two kinds of problem cluster at the start. One is honest error: a digit typed wrongly, a name spelled differently from the one on the account, a missing branch code. The other is deliberate deception: someone persuading you to pay a stranger, or an invoice whose bank details have been quietly changed.

Errors also cost unevenly. A mistaken domestic payment between two accounts at the same bank can often be sorted out with a phone call. A mistaken international one has more parties, more currencies and fewer people who feel responsible. Our guide on delayed, stuck or returned transfers shows what recovery looks like, and it is not quick.

The protections that stop at the border

Domestic systems have been adding safety nets in recent years, and it is easy to assume they travel. Mostly they do not.

In the United Kingdom, Confirmation of Payee checks the name on an account before you send. Pay.UK describes it as a service for UK domestic payments, and the page does not mention international ones. Britain’s rules requiring banks to reimburse victims of authorised push payment fraud apply to Faster Payments and CHAPS transfers between UK accounts, according to the Payment Systems Regulator, so an international transfer does not appear to be covered.

In the euro area, a similar name check is now required. The European Central Bank summarises the Instant Payments Regulation as obliging banks to offer a free verification-of-payee service for both standard and instant euro transfers, returning a match, a close match, a no match or an “other” result. The deadline for euro-area banks was 9 October 2025. That helps euro-to-euro payments, and says nothing about a dollar transfer from the United States to Nigeria.

Practically: when you send abroad from a country with name checking, do not assume the check is running. A cross-border payment may be routed on the account number alone, and whether the receiving bank compares the name varies. Your own care is the safety net.

The checklist

1. Confirm the recipient through a second channel. If the details arrived by email or message, ring a number you already had, or speak to the person. This one step guards against the scam in which payment details are quietly swapped.
2. Get the name exactly as the bank holds it. Ask for it as written on the account or statement, including middle names and the order. Where a bank or provider does compare names, a nickname or a missing middle name is an easy way to fail the match.
3. Get the full account identifier, in the right format for the country. Some countries use an IBAN; others use a national account number plus a routing, sort or branch code. Do not mix them.
4. Ask which currency the account holds. A receiving account may be in local currency or a foreign one, and conversion on arrival can add a second margin.
5. Check the total cost in the receiving currency. Compare the amount the recipient will get, not the fee. Our guide to total cost sets out how.
6. Read back the details before you confirm. Characters, not just the look of the screen.
7. Keep the reference number and a screenshot of the confirmation.
8. Tell the recipient what to expect and when. Then ask them to confirm when it lands.

Item three deserves its own section, because a surprising number of failures live there.

What an IBAN does for you, and what it does not

An IBAN has up to 34 alphanumeric characters: a two-letter country code, two check digits, then a country-specific account number (each country’s exact format is listed in the Swift IBAN Registry). The check digits are calculated with a standard algorithm (mod-97-10), which means a mistyped IBAN will usually fail validation before it goes anywhere. That is a rare thing in payments: an error caught at the keyboard.

To see how well it works, take the widely used sample IBAN GB82 WEST 1234 5698 7654 32. Move the first four characters to the end, turn letters into numbers (A is 10, B is 11, up to Z at 35) and divide the long result by 97. A valid IBAN leaves a remainder of 1. Run through the calculation, the sample does leave 1.

Every slip in this small test is caught, and the method is designed to catch most typing errors of these kinds. Most, not all.

Now the limits. A valid IBAN is not the same as the right IBAN. It proves that the string is well formed, not that it belongs to the person you meant. Pay it to a fraudster’s account and it will validate perfectly. It also says nothing about the name.

Some countries do not use IBANs at all. The United States uses routing numbers, Canada uses its own institution and transit numbers, and Australia and New Zealand use bank-state-branch codes. For those, there is no built-in check, so slow, careful reading is the only defence. If a provider asks for a code you do not recognise, ask the recipient’s bank what it is called there before guessing.

Is a test payment worth it?

Many people send a small amount first. It is a sensible habit, with a cost: if the provider charges a fixed fee per transfer, you pay it twice.

Illustration: suppose the fixed fee is £2.50 a transfer (made up). A test of £50 followed by £950 costs £5.00 in fees; a single £1,000 transfer costs £2.50. The extra £2.50 is 0.25 per cent of the £1,000. Against that, the test proves that the account exists, accepts the currency, matches the name and gets credited in a known time, before the larger sum is at risk.

The test tells you more when the amount is large, the recipient is far away or you have no other way of checking the account. It tells you less when the amount is small (the fee may dwarf the saving), or when the route is one you have used before for other people. And it does not fully test everything: a bank may apply extra checks to larger transfers that a small one never meets. So a test is evidence, not a guarantee.

It is also worth asking the recipient for a particular thing in return: when the test arrives, the exact amount and the name shown in their statement. If the name displayed differs from what you gave, you have found a problem cheaply.

Scams cluster at the first payment

New recipients include people you have never met: a landlord, a seller, a “relative in trouble”, a supposed official. Our guide on scams to avoid covers the patterns. The checklist helps with one in particular, the swapped bank detail, and does nothing against someone you have been talked into paying.

A few questions are worth asking yourself before any first transfer to someone you do not know. Did they contact you first? Is there a deadline? Are they asking for a method that cannot be reversed? Do they want you to keep it quiet? One yes is a reason to stop and ask someone else.

The rate, last

Finally, price. A first transfer is when you are least likely to have compared providers, because the urgency is high. A minute spent on the exchange rate is cheap relative to the amount at stake. A quick look at the market rate, such as the GBP to EUR page, gives a reference point for judging whatever you are offered. Rates refreshed hourly, though a provider’s own rate will differ from the market one.

After that, repeat transfers are easier. You will have a verified name, a working account and a record. Save the details somewhere you control, rather than retyping them from memory each time.

Sources

• Pay.UK: Confirmation of Payee
• Payment Systems Regulator: APP scams
• European Central Bank: Instant Payments Regulation
• Swift: IBAN, International Bank Account Number
• Wikipedia: International Bank Account Number

Checked: November 2026