There have been numerous reports of COVID-19 grant payments being made to companies who are simply not eligible to receive them and in the worst cases, fraudulent claims being deliberately made.
Fraudulent claims
On the back of these fraudulent claims, grants have been paid into bank accounts which may have been set up with the express purpose of receiving funds under false pretences. In many cases the bank account has nothing to do with the business entity used to make the initial claim.
Validate and verify tool
To help combat this, Destin Solutions have created a ‘validate and verify’ tool. It works by reviewing and validating your grant payments and verifying that the bank account details that have been provided are associated with that company or sole trader.
Confirming business entitlements
During the validation phase the solution confirms that the business is a legitimate enterprise by cross referencing this against our existing business ratepayer’s database, HUB. It confirms who the legitimate occupants and proprietors of businesses are and incorporates information from Companies House. It then identifies the reliefs that a business is entitled to which then helps confirm eligibility of grant payments.
Verifying business bank accounts
Once a grant has been validated, the next step is to ensure the money is deposited in the bank account of the right business. Our verification process includes a review of a business’s bank account, sort code and account name, ensuring that the bank details supplied match up with the known business account.
Using the ‘validate and verify’ tool a Local Authority can pay out grants safe in the knowledge they have quickly and easily conducted their due diligence, in addition to confirming the details of any payments that have already been made.
If you want to find out more about this solution email duncan.baxter@destin.co.uk or call 01772 842092 for more details.
