From 9 October 2025, the Verification of Payee (VoP) becomes mandatory across SEPA. Providers must match the beneficiary’s name and IBAN before executing a payment, thereby raising security levels, reducing fraud and building trust in both instant payments and SEPA Credit Transfers. 

Opportunity and Risk for Payments 

Under PSD3, all banks are required to offer instant payments. Since its introduction in 2017, the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme has grown quickly. It offers settlement in under 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across 35 SEPA countries.  

But speed comes with risk. 2024 EBA Clearing data shows instant SCTs are 9x more likely to be fraudulent than traditional SCTs. This vulnerability is driving the push for VoP, which adds a real-time name/IBAN check before release of funds. 

What It Means for Companies 

The effect of VoP depends on the complexity of payments: 

• Simple payments (SCT Inst & SEPA CT): Minimal disruption; VoP runs automatically, results are clear. 

• High-volume or bulk payments (host-to-host): More impact; companies must choose whether to opt in. Exceptions could delay processing, requiring manual review. 

Banks will return one of four statuses: 

• Match – exact alignment 

• Close Match – minor discrepancy (typo, abbreviation, brand name) 

• No Match – no alignment, potential fraud 

• Cannot Verify – incomplete data or technical issue 

Anything but a Match requires payer intervention, which may slow or disrupt bulk processes. 

Challenges Ahead 

• Operational slowdowns – thousands of exceptions in bulk files 

• Name mismatches – abbreviations, acronyms, or recent corporate name changes 

• Limited bank support – banks cannot correct or share beneficiary data, leaving resolution to the payer and supplier 

Preparing Now 

VoP is only one layer of a broader payment security framework. To prepare, companies should: 

• Audit and clean beneficiary databases 

• Validate new suppliers at onboarding 

• Set up periodic data reviews 

• Define workflows for handling exceptions 

• Optionally, instruct the bank not to apply VOP to bulk payments 

Early preparation reduces friction and ensures compliance with PSD3/PSR. 

Conclusion 

The convergence of PSD3 and Instant Payments introduces stricter regulation and more bureaucracy, reshaping the European payments landscape beyond just improving security. The mandatory introduction of Verification of Payee will not eliminate fraud risks, but it provides a critical control that companies must integrate into their operations. 

For corporates, the challenge will be to balance security, compliance, and efficiency. With the right preparation—and with trusted partners such as alseda Consulting—businesses can turn regulatory change into an opportunity, ensuring both resilience and confidence in their payment operations. 

The alseda Consulting Perspective 

At alseda Consulting, we help banks and corporates prepare for PSD3, PSR, and Instant Payment Regulation with: 

• Readiness assessments for VoP and PSD3 

• Cleansing and optimisation of payment databases 

• Process and system integration for exception handling 

• Governance and change management to align security with efficiency 

With expertise at the crossroads of regulation and technology, we enable clients to turn compliance into competitive advantage. 

Contact us for more information at infomail(at)alseda.com