The European Payments Council implemented Version 1.1 of its Verification of Payee scheme rulebook on September 20, 2026, clarifying operations, API specifications and security after feedback from live deployment. Its directory service, operated with SWIFT, has also completed a live transition supporting provider reachability and routing. The changes come as non-eurozone EU payment providers work toward a July 9, 2027, compliance deadline. Required under the EU Instant Payments Regulation for both instant and standard SEPA credit transfers, Verification of Payee checks recipient details before authorization and must be offered free to users. The inter-provider exchange has a five-second operational maximum and can return a match, close match, no match or verification-not-possible result. A close match supplies the verified recipient name for the payer to review. A warning does not necessarily prevent a transfer: liability depends on whether a payer proceeds despite it or a provider fails to perform a required check.

Swift has deferred the payments changes planned for its 2026 standards release, withdrawing a November 14 deadline that would have led to the rejection of cross-border payment messages with unstructured postal addresses. The decision has prompted related postponements for CHAPS, Fedwire and SEPA, although Switzerland’s SIX-operated payment infrastructure is retaining its November deadline. Swift expects to determine a revised timeline for payment-related address requirements after industry consultations by December 2026. The delay exposes a gap between adopting ISO 20022 messages and supplying the structured data they are designed to carry. Swift monitoring found that 61.2% of debtor addresses and 62.9% of creditor addresses still arrived as unstructured text, even as more than 98% of cross-border instructions transmitted in ISO 20022 envelopes. Banks face work beyond changing message formats: customer records, payment systems and screening processes must handle address components accurately from the point where payment details first enter the system.

The European Payments Council has issued Version 1.1 of its Verification of Payee rulebook, effective September 20, 2026. The update addresses operational issues identified after launch, clarifies API specifications and refines the API Security Framework. It follows Eurozone deadlines requiring payment service providers to receive instant euro transfers from January 2025 and to send them and offer payee verification from October 2025. Under Regulation (EU) 2024/886, instant euro credit transfers must complete within 10 seconds and be available around the clock. Payee verification occurs before a transfer is executed, adding a separate real-time exchange to the payment process. Together, the requirements challenge legacy systems built around scheduled batch processing. Non-eurozone EU providers face receiving and sending deadlines in 2027, while national supervisors are collecting transaction, fee and decline metrics to monitor compliance.

Swift has postponed the mandatory removal of unstructured postal addresses from payment messages, previously scheduled for November 14, 2026. It has also deferred cross-border payments changes to Standards Release 2027 or later, with an updated scope expected by December 2026. The European Payments Council and Federal Reserve Financial Services have postponed their structured address timelines in response. The delay exposes a data problem beneath the messaging change. Swift monitoring found that roughly 61% to 65% of global payment messages still used unstructured addresses shortly before the decision. Many core banking and ERP systems store addresses as free text rather than the separate fields specified by ISO 20022. Swift’s interim hybrid format requires a structured town name and country code while allowing limited free-text detail. Separately, the non-payments portion of Standards Release 2026 is now scheduled for June 12, 2027, to avoid a conflict with Europe’s T+1 settlement migration.

Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Saldo Finance Oy, the Finnish holding company of Lithuania-licensed Saldo Bank UAB. Announced on October 14, 2026, the transaction is expected to close in 2027, subject to customary approvals from the European Central Bank and the Bank of Lithuania. The purchase price was not disclosed. The deal would give Payward an EU-licensed bank alongside its existing European electronic money institution license. That license permits fund holding and payment processing but not lending or paying yield on customer deposits. Once the acquisition closes, Payward plans to use the banking license to offer interest-bearing euro deposits, consumer credit and direct SEPA clearing without intermediary banks. Saldo Bank already provides deposits, lending and banking-as-a-service infrastructure. Payward also plans to extend Saldo’s consumer credit card offering from Finland to Sweden in 2027.