Bank Account Verification, the service that eliminated over 90% of Handy's erroneous payments

Handy is the payment facilitator that allows companies to collect payments through a wide range of digital payment methods, including credit and debit cards, bank transfers, and billing networks. Born in Uruguay about two years ago, they now serve over 18,000 SMEs with their solution.

With Handy, companies can acquire the service in two ways: at physical points through POS terminals, and digitally by integrating a payment gateway. They can easily receive their sales money as Handy transfers it to their bank account daily.

To transfer the money resulting from sales to the company, Handy used to request a bank account number, which had to be manually entered into their back office for the transfer to take place.

As it was a manual process, the risk of error was present. According to Sebastián Salveraglio, COO of Handy, "entering a wrong digit of the destination bank account could result in the best-case scenario of the transaction bouncing back, requiring a revalidation of the account data with the company. In the worst-case scenario, if the incorrect account existed, the money was deposited into the wrong account." Salveraglio states that this caused two main issues: reputational damage to the customer who didn't receive the money on time and administrative challenges in reversing the payment to the wrong account, involving time-consuming procedures and requests to the bank, which could take anywhere from 24 hours to 10 days, depending on the bank.

Currently, Handy accesses the Bank Account Verification service through a platform provided by Prometeo for their back office team to perform necessary inquiries and verifications. They are soon to initiate the process of integrating this solution directly into their system.

Thanks to this solution, Handy found a way to verify the destination accounts for payments, significantly reducing the risk of transferring funds to the wrong accounts. Now, the team enters a platform where they input the information of the destination bank account and can instantly confirm that the account holder's details and the account number match, ensuring a secure payment. Sebastián says, "Prometeo allowed us to have more guarantees; now we can verify that the name of the account holder corresponds to the business we want to pay, and that has allowed us to reduce the risk of errors by over 90%, and we know that once we have the solution integrated into our back office, that reduction will be 100%."

Handy began using the Account Validation service in March 2023. At that time, they couldn't directly integrate it into their system, so Prometeo developed an independent space where they could make inquiries and get the guarantees they needed as quickly as possible. In a matter of days, they achieved greater efficiency and security in their payment process. Sebastián adds, "What I always highlight about Prometeo is their excellent willingness to find solutions to the problems we have. They have always been open to the proposals from our back office team, and that makes us very happy."

The Account Validation service is a solution for all companies making recurring payments to different bank accounts and needing to eliminate erroneous transfers due to incorrect account information. It is also beneficial for companies looking to eliminate fraud in their onboarding or registration processes, where individuals or companies are required to provide information about their bank accounts.

With Account Validation, companies gain access to:

• Bank account number
• Account holder's name
• Account type and currency
• Account status

This helps them verify that the information they have matches what they need to operate.

If you want to learn more about this solution and how it can help your company, contact us, and together, let's reduce errors or fraud in your business.