Westpac has announced it will extend its payee verification service, Westpac Verify, for use on its business payables platform, PaymentsPlus.

The new capability enables businesses to confirm payee details before payments are initiated, alerting payers to potential bank account number and name mismatches.

Through Verify, users of the PaymentPlus platform – notably, business and government agencies – will be able to better identify fake invoice or payment redirection scams, and avoid mistaken payments, Westpac said.

Westpac launched Verify for retail and small business customers in April this year. The bank reports the service has already saved upwards of $50 million in scams and mistaken payments.

The Verify function will be available on the PaymentsPlus platform from late September, with batch verifications and API connectivity via PaymentsPlus scheduled to be added in the next quarter.

Westpac’s chief executive of its institutional bank Nell Hutton said the expansion of the account verification service has the potential to save government and institutional business users “millions”. As well, he said, businesses will benefit from operational efficiency when setting up or changing payee details in their accounts payable systems.

“International scammers target Australian businesses and government agencies that make large payments and often pay multiple invoices in batches.

“When scammers manage to steal funds from these organisations, the damages are significant and can have knock-on impacts for their customers and suppliers,” Hutton said.

Payment redirection scams involve a recipient receiving an email or invoice that appears legitimate and requesting payment to new or updated account details, which are tied to a scammer’s account.

These redirection scams are commonly executed through business email compromise, where the scammer, posing as a trusted figure, uses email to trick an individual into sending money or, in some cases, divulging sensitive company information. The scammer may then ask for a fake bill to be paid or for sensitive data they can use in another scam.

Citing figures from the ACCC’s annual Targeting Scams report, Westpac notes that payment redirection scams are among the most common targeting businesses in Australia, resulting last year in the loss of just under $92 million. A year earlier, prior to the roll out of most payee verification services by Australia’s big four banks, these scams accounted for more than $225 million in losses.

False billing scams alone accounted for $11.8 million in losses by businesses last year, or $7,000 per business, representing the top scam impacting businesses by financial loss.

Payee verification is a key plank of the banking industry’s Scam Safe Accord, with the the industry agreeing to collectively invest $100 million to develop and deploy a new confirmation of payee system, to be made available to all Australian banks.