Following a public consultation on the proposed Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme rulebook and the proposed European Payments Council’s (EPC) recommendations for the matching processes under the VOP scheme rulebook, the EPC is launching the first version of the VOP scheme rulebook developed to support payment service providers (PSPs) in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) that will be required to comply with legal obligations on the verification of a payee in the case of credit transfers as outlined in the proposed EU Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) amending the SEPA Regulation.
This version 1.0 of the VOP scheme rulebook focuses to predominantly fulfil the EU legislative requirements set out by the IPR. This means that for the time being, and to allow PSPs in the European Economic Area (EEA) to comply with the new regulatory requirements within the given deadlines, the rulebook limits itself to verifications of a payee related to a SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) or a SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst). Future versions of the VOP scheme rulebook could cover other payment instruments as well, depending on market needs or interest.
The VOP scheme allows the PSP of the payer (the Requesting PSP) to instantly send to the PSP of the payee (the Responding PSP), a request to verify the International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and the name of the payee as given by the payer (the Requester), or potentially, an identification code which unambiguously identifies that payee (e.g., Value-Added Tax (VAT) number, an Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)). The reason for this request is that the payer intends to initiate an SCT or an SCT Inst transaction to the payee.
The Responding PSP instantly verifies whether the received data matches with the concerned data registered for that payee at the Responding PSP. The Responding PSP immediately provides the Requesting PSP with a VOP response (e.g., match, no match, close match with the name of the payee, or verification check not possible). The Requesting PSP immediately passes on the response to the payer.