The Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme rulebook was developed to support payment service providers (PSPs) in meeting the new obligations under the EU Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) amending the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Regulation, which became effective on 9 October 2025 for euro area EU Member States PSPs.
Following the deployment of the VOP scheme rulebook on 5 October 2025, a limited number of issues and inconsistencies were identified which however require urgent updates of the rulebook or related documents (Application Programming Interfaces (API) specifications, API Security Framework, EPC Directory Service (EDS) documentation…) to ensure a smooth functioning of the scheme and interoperability between the scheme participants.
To this end, the EPC proposes to publish a version v1.1 of the VOP scheme rulebook (and related documents) by mid-March 2026.
The EPC submits the change requests that could be included in this version v1.1 and which are further detailed in the ‘VOP Scheme Rulebook - Public Consultation Document on urgent Change Requests’ (EPC310-25) for public consultation.
To share your feedback on these urgent change requests, please send the completed response template (EPC326-25) by email to [email protected] by 15 February 2026 at 18h00 CEST at the latest. Feedback received after this specific date and time will not be considered.
All stakeholders are encouraged to participate in the public consultation on the possible changes to be introduced into the version v1.1 of the VOP scheme rulebook (and related documents).