The European Payments Council (EPC) published the five 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks and the related Implementation Guidelines (IGs). These rulebooks enter into force on 5 October 2025.
Exceptional entry-into-force date in October
This exceptional October entry-into-force date – deviating from the usual end of November entry-into-force date – has been chosen in light of the entry-into-force dates of Regulation (EU) 2024/886, regarding instant credit transfers in euro, also known as the Instant Payments Regulation (“IPR”), amending Regulation (EU) 260/2012, also known as the SEPA Regulation. The same entry-into-force date has been selected for all relevant EPC schemes in order to facilitate the implementation preparation for Payment Service Providers (PSPs), Clearing and Settlement Mechanisms (CSMs) and other technical service providers.
The IPR sets out several obligations for PSPs based in the European Economic Area (EEA)1 whereby some of them already enter into force for euro area-based PSPs (other than Payment Institutions and Electronic Money Institutions) on 9 January 2025 and 9 October 2025 respectively.
The EPC emphasises that EPC payment scheme participants and their technical service providers will have less time available to implement the 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks compared to a normal EPC payment scheme rulebook release and implementation cycle.
Important notice on the address format under the 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks
The 2025 rulebooks introduce the possibility for payment end-users to provide an address of the payer and/or of the payee in a hybrid format alongside the already existing possibilities of submitting an address either in a fully structured format or in an unstructured format.
However, as of 22 November 2026, the provision of an address in an unstructured format will no longer be allowed. As of that date onwards, only the fully structured and hybrid address formats will be allowed. Further guidance about the address format specifications is given in the EPC guidance document – Provision of Addresses under the EPC Payment Schemes (EPC 153-22).
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1 The EEA covers the 27 EU member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
