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Spain's instant-payments and card-interchange architecture rests on three pillars: the EU Instant Payments Regulation (Reg (EU) 2024/886) mandating SEPA Instant for euro transfers, the Redsys card-processing/interchange switch, and the EU Interchange Fee Regulation capping domestic debit/credit interchange. Verification of Payee (VoP) became mandatory for SEPA and SEPA Instant transfers on 9 October 2025 under the IPR, directly affecting Bizum (28M+ users) and bank-to-bank SEPA Instant transfers. The EPC's Verification of Payee Rulebook v1.1 updated the governing API and security specifications for VoP, SRTP and SPAA, taking effect 20 September 2026 across all SEPA scheme participants, including Spanish PSPs.
Outlook
Expect continued acquirer diversification into value-added services as IFR caps hold margins flat, with Bizum's emerging scheme-level presence a further structural pressure on card-network economics.
Scheme & Network Compliance
The European Payments Council's Verification of Payee Rulebook version 1.1 became mandatory for all SEPA scheme participants, including Spanish payment service providers, from 20 September 2026. The update revises API specifications, notably prohibiting empty fields in VoP response messaging, and tightens the security framework governing Verification of Payee, SEPA Request to Pay (SRTP), and the SEPA Proxy Lookup and Addressing scheme (SPAA). This is a scheme-rulebook update layered on top of an existing legal obligation rather than a new substantive duty: Verification of Payee, in the form of IBAN-name matching for SEPA Instant credit transfers, has been mandatory in Spain since 9 October 2025 under the EU Instant Payments Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/886), with direct effect on both Bizum and conventional SEPA Instant bank transfers.
For Spanish PSPs, the practical consequence is a technical and security compliance update to already-built VoP infrastructure rather than a new build requirement. The underlying regulatory driver, the Instant Payments Regulation's VoP mandate, is unchanged; the EPC rulebook update operates at the scheme layer that all SEPA participants, Spanish or otherwise, must conform to as a condition of continued scheme participation. No Spain-specific implementation notice from Iberpay, Spain's national SEPA clearing and settlement infrastructure operator, or a dedicated Banco de Espana circular addressing the September 2026 update was located this cycle; the sourcing for the rulebook change itself rests on an aggregator account (ClearingPost), corroborated structurally by the Banco de Espana's own prior public guidance describing the October 2025 VoP obligation that the rulebook update amends procedurally.
No other Scheme & Network Compliance development for Spain surfaced this cycle.
Outlook
As scheduled, the EPC Rulebook v1.1 specifications took effect on 20 September 2026 and are now in force across the SEPA area, including for Spanish scheme participants. The next material point of interest specific to Spain would be a direct statement from Iberpay or the Banco de Espana confirming local operational compliance with the updated API and security specifications; no such statement was available this cycle, so the current account rests on scheme-level and aggregator sourcing rather than a Spain-specific primary confirmation.
1 earlier distinct update(s)
Scheme & Network Compliance
Verification of Payee, the IBAN-name matching requirement under Regulation (EU) 2024/886, the Instant Payments Regulation, became mandatory for SEPA Instant credit transfers on 9 October 2025. This confirmed, scheme-level compliance requirement directly affects Bizum, Spain's dominant mobile payment scheme with more than 28 million users, as well as SEPA Instant bank transfers generally, since both rely on the underlying SEPA Instant credit-transfer rail now subject to the VoP mandate.
This mandatory-VoP milestone for instant payments specifically is understood to be a precursor to a broader requirement: PSD3/PSR is expected to extend Verification of Payee to all payment channels, not solely instant transfers, once the package is transposed into Spanish law. This means Spanish payment schemes and networks currently compliant with the instant-transfer-specific VoP mandate should anticipate a materially wider scope of application once PSD3/PSR's channel-agnostic VoP requirement takes effect.
For Bizum specifically, given its scale and its reliance on the SEPA Instant rail, the current VoP mandate represents an already-live scheme-compliance obligation, while the anticipated PSD3/PSR extension represents the next scheme-compliance milestone to prepare for.
Outlook
The principal scheme-compliance development to watch is the scope and timing of PSD3/PSR's extension of Verification of Payee beyond instant transfers to all payment channels, and how Bizum and other major Spanish payment schemes adapt their existing SEPA Instant VoP infrastructure to that broader mandate once transposition occurs.
Sources and findings (5)
- T3https://redsys.es/en/sobre-nosotrosretrieved
- T3https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/spain-payment-gateway-marketretrieved
- T1https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-10/IFR_report_card_payment.pdfretrieved
- T1https://www.bde.es/wbe/en/areas-actuacion/sistemas-pago/los-sistemas-pago-espana/snce/retrieved
- T3https://redsys.es/en/politica-corporativaretrieved