European Parliament approves Instant Payments bill

8 February 2024

On 7 February, the European Parliament approved the Instant Payments Bill. Members of the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the bill, with 599 in favour. With this, the new rules will soon come into force.

Plenaire vergadering van het Europees Parlement met afgevaardigden in halfronde zaal, omringd door EU-vlag en nationale vlaggen.

Security vs. fraud

To ensure security, payment service providers must have robust fraud detection and prevention measures in place to prevent transfers from ending up in the wrong bank account due to fraud. Payment service providers operating in the European Union must also offer a service to verify the recipient’s name. In the Netherlands, this service is known as‘IBAN Name Check‘.

As an additional safeguard against fraud, payment service providers must offer their customers the option of setting a security limit for Instant Payments. Users should be able to change their security limit easily.

Payment service providers offering Instant Payments should monitor daily whether any sanctions or other restrictive measures apply to their customers.

Cost

The fees charged by a payment service provider for an Instant Payment should not exceed the fees for a regular SEPA transfer.

Non-euro

These rules also apply to banks in EU Member States whose currency is not the euro for all accounts reachable for SEPA transfers. However, they will be given longer to implement the rules.

Rapporteur Michiel Hoogeveen (European Conservatives and Reformists Group), said yesterday about the agreement: “The Instant Payments Regulation marks the long-awaited modernisation of payments in the European single market. With Instant Payments, we have collectively achieved something that really benefits people and businesses: transferring money within 10 seconds at any time of the day.” This will be possible 365 days a year after the introduction of the regulation, including at night, on weekends and public holidays.