Verifying Payment Details So You Cannot Send Money to the Wrong Account
The direct answer: never act on account details that arrived only as a message. Send the details yourself, through a channel you already trust, and ask the supplier to confirm them in a second, independent channel. Compromised accounts are now a standard method of attack, which means the verification has to survive the compromise.
Part of the buyer journey: Find & Verify a Supplier Before Money Moves — stage 2 of 8, with the other guides for this stage.
Why the obvious checks are not enough now
Business email accounts are routinely compromised in this trade, and a genuine supplier can send you a bank account that has been changed by someone who read the thread. That is why replying to the same email does not help: the reply comes from the same inbox.
Use a different channel entirely for the confirmation — a voice call to a number you already had, not one supplied in the message requesting payment.
The four checks, in order
First, the account name must match the registered company name exactly. Second, call the supplier on a previously verified number and read the account details aloud to them. Third, send a small test payment first if the amount is large, and confirm receipt from a different contact at the company.
Fourth, require written acknowledgement of the payment reference and amount from the company before the balance is released. A real supplier does all four without friction.
What a genuine supplier will say about this
A legitimate exporter will understand every one of these checks, because their own fraud exposure is the same as yours. If a supplier is frustrated by a phone call to confirm a bank account, that reaction is itself the finding.
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Buyer questions, answered
Can you check a bank account is genuine?
There is no check that proves an account is legitimate before payment. What you can do is prove that the person instructing the payment is the person you intend to pay, using an independent channel. That is the protection that actually works, and it is why the phone call matters more than any document.
Is paying a deposit risky?
A deposit is a real exposure, which is why it should be small, and why it should be paid only after identity verification. A modest deposit is the normal cost of entering this market. An unreasonable deposit to an unverified account is not a market cost, it is a loss.
What if the supplier changes bank details after we agree terms?
Stop and re-verify from scratch through an independent channel. A legitimate change is rare and will come with documentation. A change requested close to shipment, after you have already discussed a specific order, is a well-known fraud pattern.