The European Payments Council implemented Version 1.1 of its Verification of Payee scheme rulebook on September 20, 2026, clarifying operations, API specifications and security after feedback from live deployment. Its directory service, operated with SWIFT, has also completed a live transition supporting provider reachability and routing. The changes come as non-eurozone EU payment providers work toward a July 9, 2027, compliance deadline. Required under the EU Instant Payments Regulation for both instant and standard SEPA credit transfers, Verification of Payee checks recipient details before authorization and must be offered free to users. The inter-provider exchange has a five-second operational maximum and can return a match, close match, no match or verification-not-possible result. A close match supplies the verified recipient name for the payer to review. A warning does not necessarily prevent a transfer: liability depends on whether a payer proceeds despite it or a provider fails to perform a required check.

Swift has deferred the payments changes planned for its 2026 standards release, withdrawing a November 14 deadline that would have led to the rejection of cross-border payment messages with unstructured postal addresses. The decision has prompted related postponements for CHAPS, Fedwire and SEPA, although Switzerland’s SIX-operated payment infrastructure is retaining its November deadline. Swift expects to determine a revised timeline for payment-related address requirements after industry consultations by December 2026. The delay exposes a gap between adopting ISO 20022 messages and supplying the structured data they are designed to carry. Swift monitoring found that 61.2% of debtor addresses and 62.9% of creditor addresses still arrived as unstructured text, even as more than 98% of cross-border instructions transmitted in ISO 20022 envelopes. Banks face work beyond changing message formats: customer records, payment systems and screening processes must handle address components accurately from the point where payment details first enter the system.

Swift has postponed the mandatory removal of unstructured postal addresses from payment messages, previously scheduled for November 14, 2026. It has also deferred cross-border payments changes to Standards Release 2027 or later, with an updated scope expected by December 2026. The European Payments Council and Federal Reserve Financial Services have postponed their structured address timelines in response. The delay exposes a data problem beneath the messaging change. Swift monitoring found that roughly 61% to 65% of global payment messages still used unstructured addresses shortly before the decision. Many core banking and ERP systems store addresses as free text rather than the separate fields specified by ISO 20022. Swift’s interim hybrid format requires a structured town name and country code while allowing limited free-text detail. Separately, the non-payments portion of Standards Release 2026 is now scheduled for June 12, 2027, to avoid a conflict with Europe’s T+1 settlement migration.