Paris, December 10, 2024
Press Release
EBA CLEARING today announced the launch of its SEPA-wide VOP solution.
The new solution supports payment service providers (PSPs) in offering Verification of Payee services to their customers that fulfill the requirements of the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) and of the VOP Scheme developed by the European Payments Council (EPC). With this delivery, EBA CLEARING provides the 5,000 PSPs that are connected to its RT1 and STEP2 Services with a comprehensive pan-European solution, which is designed to build SEPA-wide reach for Verification of Payee.
Developed with the support of fraud experts from its multinational user community, the solution leverages building blocks of the Company’s Fraud Pattern and Anomaly Detection (FPAD) functionality. FPAD went live in March 2024 and is an integral part of the pan-European retail payment systems STEP2 and RT1. FPAD provides the users of both services with a wide range of real-time fraud prevention and detection tools based on anomalies and fraud patterns identified at network level.
EBA CLEARING’s VOP solution offers different options to take advantage of the wide-ranging Verification of Payee capabilities of FPAD, both on the requesting and the responding sides. This will allow PSPs to adapt their VOP approaches over time, whilst ensuring full pan-European reach from the start. Using the FPAD functionality for VOP also enables PSPs to address risk considerations and limit friction for end users, in addition to fulfilling compliance requirements.
Erwin Kulk, Head of Service Development and Management at EBA CLEARING, said:
“We are pleased to provide our vast user community with a pan-European VOP solution 10 months ahead of the deadline set by the IPR for the eurozone. This will allow our users to fine-tune their VOP services and seamlessly integrate them into their payment processes.
Our solution provides options on the requesting and responding side. Offering different functional and connectivity options has always been a key success factor for us to create pan-European reach fast. Participants starting to use VOP will already receive a VOP response for any IBAN in SEPA ahead of the IPR deadline.
Moreover, we offer the possibility to enrich VOP data with other FPAD indicators. This provides users with extra insights to catch fraud not stopped by VOP. It also allows them to limit unnecessary friction for end users that VOP would introduce. These assets will help PSPs to make the VOP journey as user-friendly as possible for their customers.”
EBA CLEARING’s FPAD functionality was developed in 2023 with the support of fraud experts from participant institutions across Europe, following the release of a blueprint and subsequent RT1 and STEP2 user consultation in Q4 2022. STEP2 and RT1 are pan-European retail payment systems processing SEPA Credit Transfers and Direct Debits (STEP2) and SEPA Instant Credit Transfers (RT1) respectively. Both systems are operated by EBA CLEARING, a European-owned, European-governed and European-regulated financial market infrastructure provider providing cost-effective solutions to the SEPA payments ecosystem.
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