On 5 October, Iberpay and Spain's banking community launched the European Verification of Payee (VOP) service, which checks IBAN data against the payee’s name before any SEPA transfer or instant payment is sent.

The new service is designed to reduce errors and cut the risk of identity fraud by making sure the name on the destination account matches the stated payee before the transaction goes through. Its introduction further enhances the security, trust and transparency of A2A payments in the European Economic Area.

Over 120 Spanish and international banks and PSPs are already signed up to Iberpay’s Verification of Payee service. Thanks to Iberpay’s centralised infrastructure, their customers, general public, companies and local authorities, can instantly pre-check (24/7) that the name of the person the customer wants to pay matches the name on the payee account before any money changes hands.

After a few days in operation, the service was already checking more than 1.83 million payments per day with an average end-to-end response time of 0.36 seconds. Financial institution customers thus get a process that is fast, agile, safe and integrates seamlessly into their payment flows.

About Iberpay's VOP service

Iberpay's VOP service uses a centralised model with Iberpay acting as Routing and Verification Mechanism (RVM) for the industry. Financial institutions need only one technical connection to verify all payments to Spanish or European institutions. This approach provides easy technical and practical interoperability between all participants and smooth interconnections with other European VoP solutions in a standardised verification system that offers operational efficiency and cost-savings across the industry and efficient compliance with the Instant Payments Regulation.

Iberpay's new service handles all use cases, including verifying mass payments, so that all payment service users and providers can enjoy a standard experience and future upgrades can be smoothly coordinated. It also uses a single industry-wide algorithm, to standardise verification responses between participants and prevent identical requests returning different responses. The algorithm has been specifically tailored to the needs of the Spanish banking community for easy integration, lower costs and harmonised and efficient regulatory compliance.

Iberpay's industry-wide service is a key strategic asset for all financial institutions, bolstering the security, reliability and consistency of their payee verification processes, and again showing the shared commitment of Spain's banking community to embrace the challenges of new technologies and European regulations.

A regulatory milestone for the euro zone

VOP is mandated by the Instant Payments Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/886 as regards instant credit transfers in euro, which amended the SEPA framework to require pre-verification of payments, from 9 October 2025, by all PSPs in EEA countries that use the euro and offer euro instant payments or transfers.

The European Payments Council (EPC) developed the common Verification of Payee (VOP) scheme, which sets the rulebook and procedures for a standardised, secure and interoperable scheme across the whole of Europe that will enhance the integrity and trust of the European payments ecosystem.

Iberpay has long been committed to helping financial institutions with regulatory compliance and efficient operational and technological adoption of new European payment requirements. The launch of its new industry-wide VOP service marks a key strategic milestone that reinforces Iberpay’s position at the forefront of Europe’s payment systems. This latest advance was made possible by cross-industry coordination and collaboration with participants during the roll-out of the service, keeping Spain's financial system up-to-speed with European initiatives on instant payments.