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.

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.