A payment does not travel alone. The retained funds-transfer regulation, Regulation (EU) 2015/847, Art. 4, requires the payer's name, payment account number and address — or an official document number, customer number, or date and place of birth — to accompany a transfer, together with the payee's name and account. Art. 16 of the same regulation sets a five-year retention period, and MLR 2017 reg. 40 does the same for due-diligence records. The UK regime that enforces it takes its full name from that duty: the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017. The information must exist and must be kept. It does not have to travel further. anonym.plus marks each party on your machine, so the audit trail stays clear while the names and accounts are shielded.
When this applies
A CHAPS record, cleared through the Bank of England's own system, names both parties and both accounts. An analyst studying settlement timing needs the timestamps and the reference numbers, not the people behind them.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Open the log in anonym.plus on your device.
- Local OCR reads any imaged confirmation pages.
- It flags payer, payee, and account details.
- Confirm the flags and keep the reference numbers.
- Swap or black out the confirmed parties.
- Save the clean record locally.
What you need to provide
- The payment log (CSV, PDF, or scan).
- An operator: Replace, Redact, or Mask.
- Optional batch for a day's worth of remittances.
PII & financial identifiers detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Names | PERSON | payer R. Vance → [SENDER] |
| Names | PERSON | payee M. Cole → [RECIPIENT] |
| Financial | IBAN_CODE | GB29 NWBK 6016 1331 9268 19 → [IBAN] |
| Financial | UK_BANK_NUMBER | 55-21-09 55210987 → [ACCOUNT] |
| Money | MONEY | £48,000.00 → [AMOUNT] |
| Location | LOCATION | payer's town → [LOCATION] |
Compliance achieved
- Shields the payer and payee details that retained Regulation (EU) 2015/847, Art. 4 makes a transfer carry.
- Leaves the original intact for the five-year period in Art. 16 of that regulation and in MLR 2017 reg. 40.
- Keeps reference and trace numbers, so a disclosure under POCA 2002 s.330 can still be evidenced from the original.
- Applies the minimisation duty in UK GDPR Art. 5(1)(c) to the copy you actually share.
- Offline work keeps the payment log off any server.
Anonymise transfer records offline — see plans & start free →
Limitations & cautions
A unique amount on a known date can point to a party even after names are masked. Masking a shared copy never satisfies the retention duty in Art. 16 or reg. 40, so keep the full original in your own system.
Frequently asked questions
What payer information must travel with a transfer?
Art. 4 of the retained funds-transfer regulation lists the payer's name, payment account number and address — or an official document number, customer number, or date and place of birth — plus the payee's name and account number. anonym.plus flags each of those so the shared copy carries none of them.
Can it read a scanned payment confirmation?
Yes. Local OCR reads the image first, then flags the parties and accounts, which matters because a printed confirmation often repeats the payer address that Art. 4 put on the message.
Does the log leave my machine?
No. The app is fully offline, so the remittance record stays on your device and the retained original stays untouched.