October 2025 marks a critical deadline for European payments. All banks across the SEPA zone must implement Verification of Payee (VOP), a new fraud prevention tool that could transform how corporate finance teams manage payment security.
For finance and treasury professionals, this represents both opportunity and uncertainty. VOP promises to reduce misdirected payments and fraud by verifying payee names against account details before transactions are processed. But the initial rollout focuses on bank-to-bank transactions, leaving corporate access unclear.
Takeaway for corporates
Finance teams need to understand what VOP delivers, when they can access and use it, and how it fits into their fraud prevention strategy. While commercial corporate access remains months away, the regulatory foundation is being built now. This guide breaks down the VOP timeline, explains what finance leaders can expect, and clarifies the current market confusion around “live” VOP services.
Your questions on Verification of Payee, answered.
What is Verification of Payee?
Verification of Payee (VOP) is a scheme developed by the European Payments Council (EPC) and is now being rolled out across the EU. The scheme aims to reduce misdirected payments and fraud by confirming the match between a payee’s name and their account identifier (e.g., IBAN) before a payment is executed, similar to the UK’s Confirmation of Payee scheme. The Verification of Payee Scheme Rulebook was published in October 2024, providing a one-year deadline for EU PSPs to become compliant by October 2025.
How does Verification of Payee work?
When a payer initiates a credit transfer, their Payment Service Provider (PSP) sends a VOP request to the PSP of the payee. The response indicates whether it’s a “match”, “close match”, “no match”, or whether “verification not possible”. All checks occur between the PSPs (or their third-party providers, e.g. Routing and/or Verification Mechanisms (RVMs)).
Who can access the Verification of Payee scheme?
All compliant PSPs can access the VOP scheme, with the deadline for mandatory adoption in October 2025. Requesting payment service providers (PSPs, e.g. banks) may use the services of scheme-compliant RVMs to send and receive VOP Requests. Notably, all Verification of Payee checks mandated from October 2025 in the Eurozone impact only transactions between PSPs (i.e. banks and RVMs). Corporate transactions are only part of this initial rollout insofar as compliant banks may make VOP checks available to their customers via their banking portals or apps. Commercial offers of VOP checks to corporates are expressly forbidden by the Scheme rulebook as they fall outside of its scope.
Who can access VOP services right now?
Over 70 RVMs have already qualified or are currently in the process of becoming qualified to support the implementation of verification of payee services. The list of RVMs connecting to the scheme is available here. However, none of these PSPs and RVMs are live with Verification of Payee scheme as of now.
What is the timeline for the rollout of Verification of Payee?
Bearing in mind that this information is updated regularly by the EPC, please find below the rollout timeline as of July 2025.
For the compliance deadline for non-Euro EU members, see more here.
Why are some vendors already advertising their Verification of Payee products?
At the current rollout state of the scheme, RVMs and Banks are the only ones allowed to run checks. However, many RVMs have, just like AccessPay, every confidence that this vital scheme will be made accessible to corporate customers. The EPC meets in November to discuss Additional Optional Services (AOS), which will very likely include the discussion of commercial VOP offerings to corporates for account-to-account payments.
What are AccessPay’s plans to roll out Verification of Payee?
AccessPay is not an RVM and will therefore not be a direct participant in the Verification of Payee scheme. Instead, we will connect to the scheme via a trusted partner. We will endeavour to deliver VOP capabilities into our payments platform as soon as RVMs can offer these as commercial products to corporate customers – which we expect to happen within the next 6-12 months.
Are Belgium and other EU countries already live with VOP?
To our understanding, countries and vendors claiming to already deliver VOP are referring to local account verification services (like CoP), which are variations from the standard VOP service. It is not using the centralised routing of VOP and is a standalone – examples are Belgium and The Netherlands.
Glossary
European Payments Council (EPC)
The European Payment Council is an organisation in the realm of European payments, involved in developing and standardising payment schemes within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). The EPC is responsible for creating and maintaining the SEPA rulebooks that govern various payment schemes.
Payment Service Provider (PSP)
Payment service providers help businesses accept payments from customers, for example via credit or debit cards, bank transfer payments, such as direct debits and direct credits, or alternative methods. PSPs can also be referred to as payment processors, payment gateways, merchant acquirers or merchant service providers.
In order to be a participant in the VOP scheme, PSPs must, among others, be licensed as a PSP and be either incorporated and licensed in a SEPA country or territory or licensed by an appropriate EEA regulatory body.
Routing and Verification Mechanism (RVM) provider
In the new Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme, requesting payment service providers (PSPs) may use the services of scheme-compliant Routing and/or Verification Mechanisms (RVMs) to send VOP Requests to Responding PSPs and receive related VOP Responses. Similarly, Responding PSPs may use the services of RVMs to receive VOP Requests and return related VOP Responses to the Requesting PSPs.
Sources
- Verification Of Payee Scheme Rulebook EPC218-23/2024 Version 1.0 (Date issued: 10 October 2024 / Date effective: 5 October 2025), available for download here & direct link to document
- “Payments:Unpacked – A (VoP) first for Belgium”, Mike Chambers, https://northeypoint.substack.com/p/a-VoP-first-for-belgium (July 2, 2025)
- “Verification of Payee Implementation in the EU: The Opportunities and Hurdles Ahead”, Anish Kapoor, https://accesspay.com/knowledge-hub/payments/verification-of-payee-implementation-in-the-eu/ (November 28, 2024)
