What is Bank Wizard? How it can affect payments you make

thinkmoney

Bills & Payments

We know how important it is to our customers that their money is safe. That's why we have security procedures in place such as the MasterCard® 3D Secure programme, which protects you against any unauthorised use of your card.

Since the upgrade to thinkmoney accounts last year, we're also using a validation tool called Bank Wizard. This verifies your information when you set up a Faster Payment or standing order. 

Bank Wizard

Bank Wizard is a tool that validates the sort code and account number you input when setting up a Faster Payment or standing order. It also determines whether payments to those details require a reference or roll number.

If the details you enter do need additional verification, you won't be able to continue until you enter a reference. For example, if you're sending a mortgage payment to a Santander Account, Bank Wizard will check the sort code and account number and confirm they're valid. It might need a reference to verify a payment to that Santander Account and if so, it will display the format of this number and leave the appropriate amount of space e.g. XXXXX/XXX.

The reference will have a set format that can contain letters and numbers. Unsure of the reference you need? Get in contact with the person or organisation you're sending the money to, they will be able to confirm the format of the reference number and where you can find it. 

What about payments set up before the upgrade?

Any standing orders that you set up before the thinkmoney upgrade will continue. If you need to change any payments and Bank Wizard recognises that you need to enter a roll or reference number, you can’t amend this yourself. Instead, you’ll need to delete the standing order and create a new one.

While this can be inconvenient, the reason why we're using Bank Wizard is to reduce the number of failed payments and the delay this can cause for you. This additional security process can help to ensure your payment sends without complication. 

There are a number of improvements we've made as part of the thinkmoney upgrade – find out about the update to standing orders.

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