On 8 April 2024, the EU's Instant Payments Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/886) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union, mandating that all payment service providers offering SEPA credit transfers must also offer instant credit transfers. The regulation transformed instant payments from a voluntary scheme to a legal requirement across the eurozone and wider SEPA area.
Key Requirements
The regulation imposed specific deadlines for compliance:
January 2025: Euro-area PSPs must be able to receive instant payments
October 2025: Euro-area PSPs must be able to send instant payments January 2027: Non-euro-area SEPA PSPs offering euro transfers must receive instant July 2027: Non-euro-area SEPA PSPs must send instant euro transfers
Critically, the regulation required that the charges for instant credit transfers must not exceed the charges for standard (non-instant) credit transfers. This prevented PSPs from discouraging instant adoption through premium pricing.
Verification of Payee
The regulation also mandated a Verification of Payee (VoP) service - known as Confirmation of Payee in the UK - requiring PSPs to verify that the payee's name matches the account identifier before executing a payment. This anti-fraud measure had to be implemented by October 2025 for euro-area PSPs.
Why It Was Needed
Seven years after the launch of SCT Inst in 2017, participation remained uneven. While some countries had achieved near-universal coverage, others lagged significantly. The voluntary approach had not delivered the pan-European reach needed for instant payments to become the default. The regulation addressed this market failure by making participation mandatory.
Significance
The Instant Payments Regulation represented one of the most significant pieces of EU payment legislation since PSD2. By mandating both availability and price parity, it ensured that instant would become the baseline for euro payments rather than a premium service, aligning Europe with markets like India and Brazil where instant payments had already achieved mass adoption.
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