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 that were registered during the Test phase are automatically recognised in the Live mode, meaning that no new registrations are required. In addition, all data entered in the Test EDS before 22 August 2025, 19:00 CET has been migrated to the Live environment and is now available for review and update. Data entered after this date was not migrated and should be re-entered directly in the Live environment, where new data can also be added. The Test environment will remain available for testing after go-live.

The EDS Live environment is accessible at the following addresses (base URLs):

• EDS Web GUI: https://www.swiftrefdata.com
  • EDS Automated Download Service: https://api.swiftrefdata.com
  • EDS Consumer and Provisioning API: https://api.swift.com . Please follow the section “6.2.2 EDS API – Get access to EDS API in Live” from the EDS Onboarding and Registration Guide for activating the access to “Consumer and Provisioning API” in the Live environment

Clarification on the usage of some key data in the EDS

The VOP scheme participants and RVMs should take the following attention points in account:

Configuration of the EDS Live environment for production

• “Scheme Operational Readiness Date” (ORD): this is the date as of when the VOP Scheme participant will be officially adherent to the EPC VOP scheme, it will be operationally ready to process VOP requests, and will become reachable within the VOP scheme.
• For new entries or ORD updates, the EDS enforces the ORD to be at least the current date plus 3 calendar days (D+3).
• Consistently with the Rulebook, the ORD must be set to “5 October 2025” (the effective date of the VOP scheme) or to a later date. The EPC invites all EDS users having already set the ORD to a date earlier than 5th October in the EDS during the pilot phase, to update it accordingly.
• The EPC also recommends to correctly set the ORD and configure all URIs and parameters into the EDS as early as possible, and sufficiently in advance to avoid any reachability and compliance issues.
• The “Publish in EDS local file” option in the EDS Web GUI must be switched ON (activated). Enabling this setting ensures that the VOP scheme participant appears in the EDS Local File and becomes reachable within the VOP scheme by its ORD date, as of or later than 5th October.
• When entering the Responding role data in the EDS, the VOP scheme participants must set their VOP API endpoints (URI) in the EDS and – optionally – the supported Options. The EPC strongly recommends configuring them as early as these data are effectively available to the VOP participant and stable
• The attribute “Environment” of Production URIs must be set to “LIVE”. The EDS enforces the “Start datetime” of LIVE URIs, and the “Operational readiness date” of Options to be as of or after the ORD.
• Further information on cut-off times for updating EDS data and for the daily publishing of EDS local file, will be published by mid-September.

Configuration of the EDS Live environment for end-to-end tests

The EPC suggests to PSPs and RVMs to start performing end-to-end live tests (“penny tests”) with other suitable PSPs and RVMs as early as possible after the 2nd September EDS Go-Live. For this purpose, the EPC suggests configuring the EDS Live environment as it follows (see also EPC FAQ #27446):

• Set the ORD to the target ORD for the VOP participant (on or after 5th October)
• Configure the Test URI(s) in the EDS Live environment
• Set the attribute “Environment” of these URIs to “TEST”, and the “Start datetime” of these Test URIs to the start date of the end-to-end testing phase or earlier