High-value legal payments need more than callback checks, with integrated identity verification, approval and reconciliation helping reduce fraud and errors.
Ask anyone buying a home what worries them on completion day, and the answer is usually the same: will the money reach the right account? It is a fair worry. If funds cannot be sent on the day, the sale can fall through, and the mortgage lender cannot use the money it has already released.
The risk behind that worry is push payment fraud. A criminal supplies false account details, or manipulates someone into sending money to the wrong account. Property numbers are not small. Between 1 April 2024 and 31 March 2025, 143 cases of conveyancing fraud were reported to Action Fraud, with £11.7 million lost. City of London Police describes criminals impersonating solicitors or estate agents through hacked or spoofed email.
Most firms rely on a phone call to confirm the details. City of London Police advises people to contact the supplier directly, using established contact details, to verify a payment request (City of London Police, 7 October 2025). That is sensible advice, and people should follow it. My argument is that, for high-value payments, this is not enough on its own, and a callback alone can no longer count as a control.
There are three reasons. First, the call proves who answered, not who gave the instruction. Second, established contact details are only as safe as the channel they came from, and City of London Police describes criminals working through hacked email. Third, the National Cyber Security Centre judged in January 2024 that AI gives attackers an uplift in social engineering, making it more effective and harder to detect. That assessment is about social engineering in general, not voice. My own view is that a voice on the phone is easier to imitate than it used to be, so recognising one proves less difficult than it did.
A second risk gets less attention: internal fraud and weak manual administration. When money held for clients across many practice areas sits in one pooled client account, most people see a single balance. One figure can hide a great deal. It is easier to manipulate a balance or an invoice, and harder to notice early.
Why the tools do not fit
Banks and payment providers were not built around how law firms work. In conveyancing, someone on the legal side must approve the work before money moves. Bank accounts are built around how individuals operate. Identity checks, payments, and money management are usually separate services that don’t connect.
So approval, identity and payment sit in different places, and the gaps between them are where fraud and error get in.
Where this is heading
The direction of travel is money that moves only when a condition is met. In September 2026, UK Finance announced the first live customer transactions using tokenised sterling deposits. In pilot remortgage completions, funds were locked and then released at completion, reducing manual checks and settlement delays, according to UK Finance.
I do not know which technology will win. The principle matters more. Release of funds should depend on something verified, not on a message or a call.
Any change to who controls money held for clients will meet resistance. Firms that feel they are giving up control push back, and I understand why. But regulators have reasons for wanting that control, and I think firms are better placed to engage with those reasons than to defend the status quo.
What payments professionals should do
My view is that, for high-value legal payments, identity, legal approval and the payment itself must be one controlled flow. In practice:
First, do not rely on a callback alone. Keep making it, and add verification that doesn’t depend on a voice call or an email thread.
Second, tie the payment to the approval. A high-value payment should not be possible until the person with authority has approved the work, in the same flow as the payment.
Third, check identity inside that flow, not days earlier in a separate system.
Fourth, reconcile each matter’s ledger to the money actually held, so that anything unusual is visible early.
Fifth, test your own process. Ask where one convincing email or call could move money, and close that gap first.
A call back asks whether a voice sounds right. A control asks whether the instruction is verified, approved and tied to the payment. High-value legal payments need the second.
