The European Payments Council (EPC) is looking for Directory Service Providers to assist in validating routing algorithms that may be utilized by participants in the Verification of Payee (VoP) scheme.
Starting in October, payment service providers will need to offer VoP IBAN/name matching services for their customers’ SEPA transactions. As part of this initiative, the EPC has contracted Swift to develop the EPC Directory Service (EDS), a centralized platform designed to securely store information about all EPC scheme participants, ensuring their identification, authorization, reachability, and interoperability within the VoP scheme.
The EPC is now issuing a public call for interest to Directory Service Providers that manage directories of BICs, official national identifiers, or IBAN ranges, and can retrieve BICs from customer account numbers. These providers are invited to collaborate with the EPC to validate routing algorithms for VoP Requests.
The EPC seeks to confirm the availability of the necessary dataset (Account Holding BICs) to ensure proper configuration of the EDS according to EPC specifications and to explore options for implementing the IBAN-to-BIC mapping algorithm. Interested parties are encouraged to respond via email by July 18.