How iBanFirst keeps your business payments secure

You're sending hundreds — maybe thousands — of euros across borders every month. How confident are you that your money is protected at every step? That your payment provider has the right licenses and that their platform can't be easily compromised? That your funds won't disappear if something goes wrong?

If you're a CFO or finance leader, these questions keep you up at night — and rightfully so. Security breaches, fraud and regulatory non-compliance can devastate your business.

The wrong choice of payment provider can expose you to risks that far outweigh any savings on transaction fees.

At iBanFirst, security isn't an afterthought — it's embedded at every level of our operations and technology.

In this article, we'll walk you through exactly how we protect your business, from regulatory compliance to cutting-edge fraud prevention technology.

Why security matters in cross-border payments

As you’re likely aware, international payments are inherently complex. Money moves through multiple jurisdictions, crosses different regulatory frameworks and typically involves numerous intermediary banks as it travels from payer to payee.

Each step introduces potential vulnerabilities.

Traditional banks have long dominated this space, but they're not always equipped to provide the speed, transparency and cost-effectiveness that modern businesses need. Enter cross-border payment providers like iBanFirst.

The question is: how do you know which provider you can trust with your funds?

When evaluating cross-border payment providers on their security, you need to ask three critical questions:

• Is this provider properly regulated? Without proper licensing and oversight, your money has no protection.

• What happens to my funds if the provider faces financial difficulties? This isn't pessimistic — it's prudent risk management.

• Does the platform itself have robust security measures? The most regulated provider in the world won't help if their systems can be easily hacked or if they don't meet modern authentication and security standards.

Let's address each of these concerns head-on.

Our regulatory foundation: Built on compliance

iBanFirst isn't just another fintech moving money around. We're a fully authorised and regulated payment institution, held to strict standards.

In the European Union, iBanFirst is licensed and supervised by the National Bank of Belgium. In the UK, iBanFirst Limited is authorised as an Electronic Money Institution by the FCA. This means we're subject to ongoing regulatory oversight, regular audits and strict compliance requirements.

We also hold two key accreditations under the Payment Service Directive 2 (PSD2):

• Account Information Service Provider (AISP): Allows us to access account information from other banks (with your permission)

• Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP): Enables us to initiate payments directly from your accounts at other institutions (with your permission)

Global payment network membership

We're not relying on other institutions to process your payments. iBanFirst is a direct member of the SWIFT network — the global standard for secure financial messaging used by over 11,000 institutions in 200+ countries.

We're also SEPA certified, which means we can process euro payments throughout the Single Euro Payments Area with the same efficiency and security as any major European bank (sometimes better).

What does this mean for you? Your payments move through established, secure channels with full traceability at every step.

How we protect your funds through account segregation

By law, iBanFirst must keep all client funds in segregated accounts. This means that any funds you hold with us are kept entirely separate from our own operational funds, held in accounts with our top-tier EU banking partners.

Think of it this way: If you deposit money with a traditional bank, they can — and do — lend that money out to generate profit. With iBanFirst, we're not a bank. We cannot lend your money, invest it or use it for our own operations. Ever.

What if iBanFirst encounters financial problems or becomes insolvent?

Your money remains fully secure and protected.

Because your funds are held in segregated accounts at custodian banks — not mixed with our operational funds — they're completely ring-fenced from our creditors. If we face difficulties, your money is returned to you in full.

This protection is mandated by PSD2 regulations and monitored by the National Bank of Belgium.

Working with multiple top-tier banking partners

Here's another layer of protection many payment providers skip: iBanFirst partners with multiple large, internationally recognised banks across the EU to hold client funds. This multi-layered approach means that even if one of our partner banks encounters difficulties (unlikely, but possible), your funds remain unaffected.

This way, we ensure that regardless of what happens in the broader financial system, your business funds remain safe and accessible when you need them.

Platform security: Features that give you control

Regulatory compliance protects your money at the institutional level. But what about day-to-day security on the platform itself?

iBanFirst has built multiple layers of protection into the platform — from authentication and approval workflows to real-time monitoring. And we're continuously evolving these features. Here are a few standouts.

Built-in approval workflows and multi-signature payments

Not everyone on your team needs full access to everything. With iBanFirst, you can set granular user permissions that give each team member exactly the access they need — nothing more.

You can configure:

• Which users can view account balances versus make payments
• Transaction limits for individual users
• The number of signatures required to validate a payment
• Which currency accounts each user can access
• Read-only access for auditors or external accountants

For high-value transactions, you can set up multiple approvals. The person initiating a payment doesn't need to be the same person approving it, creating a natural check against both fraud and human error.

You also get downloadable proof of payment for every cross-border transaction. These official SWIFT pacs.008 documents include unique tracking references that both you and your beneficiary can use to verify the payment independently.

Need documentation for an audit? Supplier claiming they never received payment? You have verifiable proof at your fingertips.

This level of transparency serves multiple purposes:

• Fraud detection: Unusual payment patterns become immediately visible
• Reconciliation: Your finance team can match payments to invoices with precision
• Communication: When a supplier asks, "Where's my payment?", you have a detailed, documented answer

The iBanFirst app: Control every sensitive operation

iBanFirst provides clients with a two-factor authentication (2FA) app that they can use for all sensitive operations on the platform. This means you need more than just a password to access your account and approve payments.

What makes the iBanFirst app different?

You can also use it for workflow approvals for any sensitive operations on your account, including:

• Login attempts
• Financial transactions
• Currency exchanges
• New beneficiary creation
• New user creation

This isn't just about convenience — it's about creating an additional security barrier that protects your most critical financial operations.

You get instant visibility into every attempt to access your account or move money, with the power to approve or deny in real time from anywhere in the world.

This approach aligns with the highest security standards set by EU regulators and gives you complete control over your business transactions — whether you're in the office, travelling internationally or working remotely.

Eliminating the weakest link: How iBanPay reduces human error

Here's an uncomfortable truth about payment security: The weakest link isn't your technology — it's human error.

According to iBanFirst's research*, 82% of SMEs still process invoices manually. That means finance teams are typing beneficiary details, amounts, currencies and reference numbers by hand for every single payment.

And when humans handle repetitive data entry tasks, mistakes are inevitable.

These aren't just inconvenient typos. Payment errors can have serious security consequences:

• Incorrect IBANs or SWIFT codes send money to the wrong account entirely.
• Transposed digits in amounts can result in massive overpayments that require complex reconciliation — or underpayments that damage supplier relationships.
• Wrong beneficiary details might trigger payment delays or facilitate fraud if criminals have compromised email accounts with fake invoice details.

Even with the best intentions and careful checking, manual processing creates a vulnerability that sophisticated fraudsters can exploit. This is where automation becomes a critical security feature.

iBanPay is iBanFirst's AI-powered invoice processing assistant that transforms how you handle payments — and in doing so, dramatically reduces security risks associated with manual data entry.

Here's how it works in three simple steps:

• Forward your invoice or use the drag & drop feature: Simply forward invoices to your dedicated iBanPay email address or drag and drop invoices on the platform dashboard. Each company gets a unique email address with personalised security codes to ensure all communications are legitimate and private.

• iBanPay extracts and validates payment details: iBanPay's AI engine scans, reads and extracts all the critical payment information — beneficiary details, amounts, currencies and reference numbers. It validates this information and automatically creates a payment draft in your iBanFirst platform with all fields pre-filled accurately.

• You review and approve with confidence: The payment draft appears in your platform, ready for review. You maintain complete control and oversight, but the tedious (and error-prone) data entry work is eliminated.

The security benefits of automation

By removing manual data entry from the payment process, iBanPay addresses several critical security concerns:

• Near-zero data entry errors: The information that goes into your payment system matches what's on the invoice — precisely.

• Detection of new beneficiaries: iBanPay can identify when a payment is going to a new beneficiary and flag missing information for existing beneficiaries. This adds an extra verification step that helps prevent payments to unknown or potentially fraudulent accounts.

• Duplicate payment prevention: The system recognises invoice IDs and can detect if you've already processed a particular invoice. This prevents the common (and costly) mistake of paying the same invoice twice.

  
  

Staying ahead of fraud with cutting-edge verification technology

One of the fastest-growing fraud tactics is payment redirection — a criminal impersonates a legitimate supplier and tricks you into sending money to their account instead.

To combat this, iBanFirst has implemented Verification of Beneficiary (VoB) in the Eurozone and Confirmation of Payee (CoP) in the UK as part of a comprehensive global Know-Your-Payee (KYP) solution.

Here's how it works: When you create a new beneficiary, our system automatically checks that the account name you've entered matches the actual name registered to that account number. If there's a mismatch, you'll get an immediate warning before the payment is sent.

This prevents fraud schemes where attackers compromise email accounts and send fake invoices with different bank details. Even if you're fooled by the email, the payment verification will catch the discrepancy.

Of course, this isn't just about fraud prevention — it also reduces payment delays caused by incorrect account details.

Our commitment to continuous security improvement

Security isn't something you set up once and forget. It requires constant vigilance, regular testing and a willingness to invest in new protective measures.

Regular audits and penetration testing

iBanFirst's security infrastructure undergoes regular audits by both internal and external parties. We also conduct penetration testing — where ethical hackers attempt to break into our systems — to identify and fix vulnerabilities before real attackers can exploit them.

These aren't box-checking exercises. They're how we ensure our defences remain strong as new threats emerge.

Enterprise-grade encryption

All connections to the iBanFirst platform use SSL and RSA SHA-256 encryption. This means data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted end-to-end, preventing interception by third parties.

We also implement enterprise-grade data encryption for stored data, ensuring that even in the unlikely event of a database breach, your sensitive information remains protected.

Proactive threat monitoring

Our commitment to security doesn't stop at our platform.

iBanFirst monitors the dark web and underground forums daily, scanning for leaked customer credentials that could compromise your account. When we detect your information in a breach — often from an unrelated hack of your personal computer or another service — we alert you immediately so you can secure your account before criminals can exploit it. Many clients first learn their systems have been compromised when we contact them. That early warning is the difference between a close call and a costly fraud incident.

This isn't just about protecting your iBanFirst account. If criminals have access to your email or computer, they can intercept invoices, redirect payments or compromise other business systems. Our proactive monitoring gives you a heads-up to contain the damage quickly.

Partner with a payment provider you can trust

Security isn't optional for international payments — and neither is choosing the right provider. When you choose a cross-border payment provider, you're not just comparing exchange rates and fees. You're making a fundamental decision about who you trust to protect your business's financial operations.

Over 10,000 growing businesses trust iBanFirst with their cross-border payments. We don't take that responsibility lightly.

With iBanFirst, you get:

• Regulatory credibility: Fully licensed and supervised by the National Bank of Belgium under PSD2
• Protected funds: Client money held in segregated accounts with top-tier EU banks, completely separate from our operational funds
• Mobile approval workflow: Approve every sensitive operation — from login attempts to payments to beneficiary creation — through the app, giving you real-time control over all account activity
  
• Platform security: Dual authentication, multi-signature payments, granular access controls and real-time tracking
• AI-powered error prevention: iBanPay eliminates human error in invoice processing, the leading cause of misdirected payments
• Proactive fraud prevention: A Verification of Beneficiary feature that stops payment redirection fraud before it happens
• Continuous improvement: Regular audits, penetration testing and a company-wide commitment to security

Ready to partner with a payment provider that takes security as seriously as you do? Open an iBanFirst account today — no setup fees, no monthly costs, just transparent pricing and enterprise-grade security from day one.

*Study by iBanFirst, June 2024, 530 users across 10 countries.