Instant Payments Regulation: Get ready for fully automated instant payments and payee verification

The financial landscape in Europe is undergoing a significant transformation with the introduction of the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR). By 9 October 2025, both businesses and consumers across the euro countries within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) will have access to instant payments in euros, 24/7, 365 days a year. 

Since the introduction of SEPA payments, euro transfers have been processed based on IBAN only. Starting in October, the payee name will also need to be verified. These fundamental changes to the euro payments system promise to reshape how we conduct transactions, offering not only unprecedented speed and efficiency but also increased security.

Understanding the changes

The new regulation ensures that funds transferred through SEPA Instant Credit Transfers will be available in the recipient’s bank account within 10 seconds after the transaction is processed. This is a significant improvement over traditional SEPA Credit Transfers, which can take considerably longer.

This enables Nordea’s corporate clients to send and receive euro instant payments from all banks in the SEPA area. The current limit of EUR 100,000 for SEPA Instant Credit Transfers outside Finland will be removed in October 2025, opening up possibilities for larger transactions.

Liisa Kanniainen, payments industry leader at Nordea, says: “The Instant Payments Regulation is transforming the European payments market. Corporates will likely see significant efficiency gains by adopting automated, real-time treasury processes.”

Enhanced security with Verification of Payee (VoP)

A key feature of the IPR is the Verification of Payee (VoP) service. This security measure will be applied to all payments in digital services, verifying the IBAN and name of the payee as provided by the payer. This helps prevent payment fraud and reduces the risk of erroneous transactions. For businesses sending bulk payments, there is flexibility to opt out of VoP under the regulation.

"While helping in fighting payment fraud, VoP introduces a major change by requiring payers to verify their payee data,” says Liisa Kanniainen. "Building the process for handling the VoP responses will take time, so we’ve designed our offerings to support a stepwise implementation approach. We also recommend all customers to verify their own billing information to ensure timely receivables flow."

Nordea leads the change with APIs 

The financial industry is right now in the middle of a paradigm shift as real-time payments become the norm rather than the exception. 

"Banking APIs are a perfect fit to support this shift as they enable instant, secure, programmable money movement and information sharing. To enable our corporate customers to harvest the full benefit of instant payments and improve their processes, we will, in a stepwise process, provide verification and instant payments directly in the customers’ systems via APIs,” says Sanela Dulic, Head of Business Development & Open Banking. 

Besides having instant payments and VoP available in our netbanks Nordea Corporate and Nordea Business, we have developed four key Premium APIs for our corporate customers. This approach enables customers to choose the service best suited to their needs, supporting their transition to real-time.

These APIs are designed to facilitate end-to-end automation and real-time processing, marking a significant step towards the future of payments.

What corporates need to do

Starting in Q4 2025, you will be able to submit multiple SEPA Instant Credit Transfers through the Multi-Payout Instant API. With this tool, you can efficiently manage instant euro payment flows with full transparency and automation. If you today use the Corporate Access Solution, you can already start the integration work, as the test version of the API is available in the Nordea API Market.

For those wishing to use the VoP service for multiple SEPA payments, the separate Bulk VoP API service will be available. More information available on www.nordeaopenbanking.com. 

If you choose not to use VoP for bulk payments or do not wish to send instant SEPA payments in bulk, no action is needed.

As we move towards this new era of instant payments, Nordea is committed to supporting our corporate customers through every step of the transition. We encourage corporate clients to start integrating with our API offering already now. We’ll continue to provide updates and guidance through www.nordeaopenbanking.com as we approach the October 2025 implementation date. 

Stay tuned for more information by signing up for the Nordea Open Banking newsletter, and don’t hesitate to reach out to your Nordea Cash Management representative with any questions about how these changes affect your business. 

Find out more: 7 key insights on the Instant Payments Regulation for Finnish companies (in Finnish).