Verification of Payee: the European launch begins on October 9, 2025

Thursday, October 9, 2025, marks a major milestone for the European payments industry: the official go-live of the Verification of Payee (VoP) framework.

Adopted under EU Regulation 2024/886 and led by the European Payments Council (EPC), this initiative aims to strengthen the security of SEPA credit transfers and provide every user with a safer, more reliable, and more transparent payment experience.

🔍 The core principles of VoP

Verification of Payee, also known as the IBAN-Name Check, is based on a simple yet powerful principle: before a payment is executed, the payer’s bank verifies whether the beneficiary’s name matches the provided IBAN.

This automatic check is performed in real time, helping to prevent data entry errors and — more importantly — significantly reducing fraud linked to the misuse or impersonation of bank account details.

The verification typically takes place when a new beneficiary is added — a critical step in the payment journey — but also before each payment. Thanks to VoP, payers are now alerted if the entered name does not match the beneficiary’s account.

🌍 First wave focused on the euro area

The initial rollout of the VoP scheme covers the 20 countries using the euro and applies to all Payment Service Providers (PSPs), including:

• Payment Institutions (PIs)
• Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs)
• Credit Institutions (CIs)

The system applies to both standard SEPA and instant SEPA credit transfers, ensuring greater consistency and security across the entire SEPA zone.

🧩 An unprecedented European collaboration

As of today, more than 3,000 financial institutions are reachable through the EPC Directory Service (EDS) — the centralized directory for VoP. This figure demonstrates a remarkable level of adoption from day one. Behind this interconnected infrastructure, around 50 RVMs (Routing & Verification Mechanisms) — including Qombo — play a key role in ensuring the reliability of these exchanges.

Their mission: to route and process verification requests between financial institutions, confirming whether the beneficiary’s name and IBAN match, do not match, or require further verification (close match). Thanks to these RVMs, millions of verifications can now be performed in real time — combining security, accuracy, and speed.

🧭 Verification statuses for efficient decision-making

Each VoP request results in a clear, standardized outcome designed to support smooth decision-making:

• Match → The name and IBAN correspond exactly
• Close match → Partial match
• No match → No correspondence
• Impossible → Verification could not be performed

⚙️ Interbank exchanges are now live

Since Monday, October 4, 2025, the first live verifications have been initiated. This crucial phase enables banks, fintechs, and RVMs to validate their technical integrations, fine-tune communication flows, and ensure consistent results ahead of the official launch on October 9. It showcases the strong collaboration across the European payments ecosystem to deliver a reliable and seamless user experience from day one.

🔒 A major step forward for payment security in Europe

With Verification of Payee, Europe takes a decisive step in securing SEPA credit transfers. Both consumers and businesses now benefit from an unprecedented level of protection against payment fraud.

For financial institutions, VoP represents not only a regulatory requirement but also an opportunity to strengthen customer trust and contribute to a safer, more unified European payments landscape. Banks, PSPs, and RVMs have worked tirelessly behind the scenes for months to prepare for this launch — and we’re proud to be among the pioneers shaping this new standard of trust in payments.