News

Today, the European Payments Council (EPC) published two new documents detailing the key differences between the 2025 One-Leg Out Instant Credit Transfer (OCT Inst) and SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme rulebooks.The publications aim to support payment service providers (PSPs) in unders

The European Payments Council (EPC) has released version 1.1 of all five 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks, which took effect on 5 October 2025. Alongside these updates, the EPC has also published updated Implementation Guidelines (IGs) and other related supporting documents.In version 1.1 of the fi

The European Payments Council (EPC) has published today a list of standard test cases consisting of reference IBANs, the Bank Identification Codes (IBAN-prefixes) and the corresponding Account Holding BICs. In the EPC Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme, reachability of Payment Service Providers

Following the 2024 change management cycle and the need expressed by the market to simplify the SEPA Request-to-Pay (SRTP) scheme adherence process and especially the homologation process, the European Payments Council (EPC) is launching on 1st October 2025 a new  simplified homologation proces

In 2021, the European Payments Council’s (EPC) Board established two multi-stakeholder groups to strengthen dialogue with key stakeholders: the Scheme End-User Multi-Stakeholder Group (SEU MSG), representing European associations of end-users  and the Scheme Technical Player Multi-Stakeholder G

The European Payments Council (EPC) is gladly announcing that the EPC Directory Service (EDS) supporting the Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme was successfully launched today, 2 September 2025, in LIVE mode.All VOP scheme participants, Routing and/or Verification Mechanisms (RVMs), and their users

The European Payments Council (EPC) is announcing that the EPC Directory Service (EDS) supporting the Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme will be launched in LIVE mode on 2 September 2025.The VOP scheme participants and the Routing and/or Verification Mechanism (RVMs) have been testing the EDS in an

The views expressed in the below reports are solely those of the authors and should not be attributed to the European Payments Council.In the second quarter of 2025, we gathered a series of reports focused on the payments industry. This collection not only explores the future and evolution of paymen

To support applicants of the SEPA Request-to-Pay (SRTP) scheme in implementing the scheme rulebook and related Application Programming Interface (API) messages prior to homologation or going live, the European Payments Council (EPC) strongly recommends conducting preliminary testing using dedicated

The European Payments Council (EPC) has published today the SEPA Request-To-Pay (SRTP) Inter-SRTP Service Provider (SP) API Specifications marking a significant milestone for the SRTP scheme. This document completes the set of documents relating to the SRTP scheme, i.e. Scheme Rulebook, Clarificatio

The European Payments Council (EPC) and Swift have created a set of videos explaining, along with the documentation, the functioning of the EPC Directory Service (EDS).These videos focus on registration in the EDS by VOP scheme participants, how the PSPs participating in the VOP scheme can delegate

Today, the European Payments Council (EPC) launched a public ‘call for interest’ to identify Directory Service Providers that own directories of BICs, official national identifiers (National IDs) and/or IBAN ranges, and allowing retrieval of BICs from customer account numbers (IBANs). These Director

Today the European Payments Council (EPC) published version 4.0 of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Request-to-Pay (SRTP) Implementation Guidelines (IGs). These IGs set out the rules for implementing the relevant ISO 20022 XML message standards based on version 4.0 of the SRTP scheme rulebo

As of today, the European Payments Council (EPC) has officially launched the second phase of the EPC Directory Service (EDS) Pilot in test environment . This extended phase is now open to all Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme participants and qualified Routing and/or Verification Mechanisms (RVMs).

The European Payments Council (EPC) is pleased to announce that its API Reference Toolbox (ART) test and self-certification platform for the Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme, in collaboration with StreamMind, is available to all payment service providers (PSPs) that are not using a Routing and/or

The European Payments Council (EPC) is pleased to announce the successful completion of the Pilot phase of its API Reference Toolbox (ART) test and self-certification platform for the Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme. Following this milestone, the platform is officially opened to all Routing and/o

The European Payments Council (EPC) Board has today approved the inclusion of Serbia in the geographical scope of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payment schemes.The geographical scope of the SEPA payment schemes now covers 41 countries.As a result, all existing EPC payment scheme participants

The European Payments Council (EPC) has published the Verification of Payee (VOP) API Reference Toolbox  (ART) – Test Cases document.This release is a part of the ART, a dedicated test environment developed to support Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and Routing and Verification Mechanisms (RVM

The European Payments Council (EPC) has released “EDS Onboarding and Registration Guide”, offering step-by-step instructions on how the Verification of Payee (VOP) scheme participants and Routing and/or Verification Mechanism (RVM) can register for using the EPC Directory Service (EDS) via the EDS G

The European Payments Council (EPC) has launched a public consultation to explore  how it can best support and facilitate the use of SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) at the Point Of Interaction (POI).Regulatory BackgroundThe Instant Payments Regulation amending the Single Euro Payments A