This post was originally published on Fin Extra
As VOP implementation across the SEPA region progresses, what are the practical next steps for financial institutions? As financial institutions prepare for the October 2025 deadline, what are the most common implementation challenges? Are interpretations of the VOP rulebook aligned across regions, or is fragmentation still an issue? Could VoP become the global standard for payee verification, similar to how GDPR reshaped data privacy? How are regions outside SEPA preparing, and will Europe’s lead drive global convergence—or divergence? Is the industry ready to look beyond the compliance aspects of VOP and focus on the benefits in terms of fraud prevention, user experience, and risk management?
Verification of Payee (VOP) scheme rules have been released by the European Payment Council (EPC) to comply with the EU’s Instant Payments Regulation (IPR). VOP will become a requirement across the SEPA region on 9 October 2025. Designed as a layer of fraud mitigation, VOP will increase levels of confidence in payments, reduce authorised push payment (APP) fraud, and decrease the amount of manual intervention needed in an environment with rapidly growing instant payments.
Challenges emerge as each PSP across the Eurozone must establish its own VOP service or select
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