From October 2025, Verification of Payee (VoP) will transform how European PSPs initiate and verify payments. For banks, fintechs, and payment institutions, this is not just another compliance obligation — it’s a chance to build trust, fight fraud, and deliver smoother payment journeys.
What is VoP?
VoP is a pre-payment check: before a SEPA transfer goes through, the payer’s PSP verifies if the IBAN matches the intended payee’s name (or identifier) at the beneficiary’s PSP.
- Match → all good.
- Close Match → small deviations (e.g. typos, spelling variants).
- No Match → strong warning that the IBAN and payee don’t align.
If a customer proceeds after a mismatch, liability shifts to them. This helps PSPs reduce fraud disputes while giving users clearer visibility on where their money is going.
Key Dates
- 5 October 2025 – EPC VoP Rulebook & API Specifications become effective.
- 9 October 2025 – Mandatory for euro-area PSPs (per EU Instant Payments Regulation).
- 9 July 2027 – Mandatory for PSPs outside the euro area but still in SEPA.
Why it matters
- Fraud prevention: stops misdirected or fraudulent payments before they leave the account.
- Customer trust: transparent responses empower users to decide.
- Interoperability: a harmonised EPC scheme ensures pan-European adoption.
- New opportunities: value-added services like account verification for onboarding or KYC.
Greece: DIAS at the Core of VoP
In Greece, DIAS Interbanking Systems S.A. — the country’s central clearing infrastructure — will play a central role in enabling VoP. The EPC lists DIAS among the Routing & Verification Mechanisms (RVMs) that PSPs can rely on for interbank name/IBAN checks.
- ASPSPs (banks, e-money, payment institutions) must integrate VoP into their digital channels (e-banking, mobile, APIs). Whenever a SEPA transfer is initiated, the request will be routed via DIAS for verification.
- TPPs (e.g. PISPs) must ensure their payment flows can handle VoP responses. When they initiate payments via an ASPSP, the VoP check is performed by the ASPSP (often via DIAS), and the TPP must be ready to consume and present the result.
This national model ensures that Greek PSPs achieve compliance in a consistent way, while leveraging DIAS’ infrastructure for reachability and efficiency.
How Finker supports you
At Finker, we’re adapting our Payment Initiation Service (PIS) Aggregation API to align with the VoP obligations that ASPSPs are embedding in their channels. When a SEPA transfer is initiated through our PIS API, the ASPSP’s VoP process is automatically executed — and our API cleanly captures and relays the outcome (Match, Close Match, No Match, Verification not possible).
In other words, while the ASPSP performs the VoP check, Finker ensures you can consume and act on the VoP responses seamlessly, without additional integration or redevelopment.
The shift to VoP is not just regulatory — it’s the foundation of a safer, more transparent, and more innovative European payments landscape.
