EU Instant Payments Regulation: euro-area PSPs must be able to receive instant payments

From 9 January 2025, under the EU Instant Payments Regulation, payment service providers in euro-area member states that offer standard euro credit transfers must be able to receive SEPA instant credit transfers, crediting the payee within ten seconds at any time and at no higher charge than standard transfers. The regulation enters into force on a staggered timeline, with later dates for non-euro countries and non-bank PSPs.

Ubiquitous instant-payment reachability is the rail beneath account-to-account schemes; making SEPA Instant mandatory and free transforms it from a premium product into baseline infrastructure that A2A wallets (Wero) and PISPs can rely on at scale.

Bank readiness and outages, pricing realignment, the 9 October 2025 send/Verification-of-Payee deadline, and uptake of instant rails by merchant A2A propositions.

• ecb.europa.eu