Verification of Payee (VoP): How to efficiently control bulk payments?

With the implementation of the Verification of Payee (VoP) standard in October 2025, European banks are now required to systematically verify the consistency between a beneficiary's name and their IBAN before executing a payment. This requirement applies equally to individual and corporate customers. However, while this obligation may seem straightforward for individual transfers, it raises significant operational challenges for companies making bulk payments.

Why does VoP is a problem for businesses?

In businesses, payments are typically prepared in internal systems (ERP for supplier payments, HRIS for salaries) and sent as batch files (XML, CSV) to banking platforms. This workflow makes VoP checks difficult to manage effectively on these platforms for several reasons:

Payment urgency: Once a payment file is ready, validation and execution through the banking platform must be quick. Manually handling discrepancies becomes impractical.

Time-consuming process: Experts estimate that banks could return "No match" results for 10% to 30% of payments, depending on the solutions used and data quality. Contacting each beneficiary via phone or email for verification becomes infeasible at such rates.

Technical limitations of banking platforms: Most banking platforms do not allow excluding individual payment orders from batch files, forcing companies to delete and regenerate the entire payment file from their ERP whenever a payment order is non-compliant.

High risk of false positives: Accurately identifying companies without a company identification number (like the VAT number) frequently results in errors due to homonyms or spelling variations. Moreover, these identifiers are rarely included in payment files.

The VoP standard is not suitable for batch payments

Given these operational challenges, it is clear that the initial VoP standard is not suitable for bulk payment contexts. Innovation is necessary to ensure a satisfactory customer experience and enhanced security.

Which solutions should be adopted to facilitate batch payments?

Here are several approaches addressing practical business constraints:

Option 1: No verification (opt-out)

Recognizing these limitations, and thanks to lobbying from banks, the European Commission has authorized an opt-out from VoP for bulk payments, provided client approval is obtained. While simplifying the process, this approach does not improve payment security.

Option 2: Systematic verification of all payments

This method involves systematic API calls to multiple banks, increasing processing times and the risk of inconsistencies due to repeated verifications (timeouts, temporary disconnections). Using a bulk VoP service facilitates this method by sending a single API request corresponding to the payment file.

Option 3: Adjusting the timing of checks (recommended solution)

Verification at onboarding: Verifying beneficiaries upon their creation in the ERP or HRIS secures the IBAN immediately upon entry into the database. Although operationally practical, this method is not fully compliant with VoP regulations, which mandate checks prior to each payment.

Hybrid approach: Opting for a hybrid RVM solution allows initial validation of beneficiaries at creation, while still performing checks at payment time for new beneficiaries who have never been paid before. This approach ensures compliance with regulations and provides fast, reassuring validation results during payment processing.

Technological innovation and best practices

To enhance user experience and security, Qombo recommends implementing several features and best practices:

Intelligent Whitelisting: Incorporating whitelisting for regularly paid beneficiaries dramatically reduces false positives. Combined with VoP results, this information simplifies decision-making for end-users.

Line exclusion capability: Banks should standardize the ability to exclude individual payment lines after verification, making VoP actionable during payment validation.

Inclusion of legal identifiers: Encouraging the use of identification numbers (such as SIREN or VAT) within payment files simplifies beneficiary identification and greatly enhances the quality of VoP controls.

Essential communication and awareness

Banks and payment service providers must educate corporate clients about maintaining high-quality beneficiary data and ensuring regular updates in their internal systems. Verifying bank details upon the initial reception of beneficiary information (supplier, employee, etc.) should become standard practice to improve payment security.

In summary: Several elements are necessary for effective payment file verification

Successfully addressing the challenges of bulk payment beneficiary verification requires optimized VoP integration and user journeys tailored specifically for this use case. Collaboration among banks, their corporate clients, and the partnering RVM is critical to delivering a satisfactory verification experience.

Qombo specifically supports banks and regulated fintech companies in this endeavor by providing personalized support and a robust, hybrid solution perfectly adapted for batch payments.