This week marks one year since the second and most demanding deadline of the EU Instant Payments Regulation. From 9 October 2025, every bank and payment provider in the euro area that offers ordinary credit transfers has had to offer instant ones too, and to check the name of the payee before the customer approves a transfer.

What the regulation requires

• Ten seconds, at any time. Euro transfers must reach the payee within ten seconds, around the clock, every day of the year.
• No premium pricing. An instant transfer cannot cost more than a standard one.
• Verification of Payee. Before a transfer is authorised, the payer’s provider compares the name entered with the name on the destination account and reports a match, a close match or no match. The check applies to all credit transfers, not only instant ones.

Euro area providers had to be able to receive instant payments from January 2025 and to send them, with payee verification, from October 2025. Providers in EU countries outside the euro area have until 2027, with the verification requirement applying from 9 July 2027.

What regulators and industry are discussing now

At the June 2026 meeting of the Euro Retail Payments Board, the forum chaired by the European Central Bank, participants reviewed the first months of the new regime. Several themes stood out:

• Instant transfers are being discussed openly as an alternative to card payments.
• Some non-euro EU countries are considering introducing payee verification ahead of their legal deadline to help fight fraud.
• Request-to-Pay, which lets a payee send a payment request that the payer approves in their banking app, is gaining interest, particularly for payments to public administrations.
• A new workstream on instant payments for business-to-business transactions was proposed.
• The European Payments Council was due to decide in September whether to make its scheme for instant transfers with one leg outside the euro area mandatory for certain participants.

What it means for businesses

Companies now receive supplier and customer payments in seconds, including on weekends, which changes cash management and reconciliation. Payee verification has also made the exact legal name on invoices and in payment files matter: a mismatch triggers a warning for the payer and can delay payment. Businesses that have not yet reviewed the account names they give to customers, or the names stored in their own supplier records, should do so.

Sources: European Central Bank, Euro Retail Payments Board statement, June 2026, PwC Legal.