Is it compulsory for sole traders to provide their personal name when being paid?

It’s not compulsory to use your personal name when providing your account details to your customers. However, it’s the secure industry-standard across over 400 UK payment service providers. This is because providing the personal name registered to your account helps support an industry-wide initiative called Confirmation of Payee. When your customers pay you, Confirmation of Payee checks the account details they use against the details held by your account. As your personal name is part of these checks, if you don’t provide it then your customers will receive an alert saying that the details can’t be confirmed. This may result in delays to you being paid, or concern your customer to the extent that you may not be paid at all. We therefore strongly recommend that you provide your personal name. Doing so is part of this widespread process, and so it will make your inbound and outbound payments more secure, as well as make it easier for your customers to pay you.