The European Payments Council is preparing the Go-Live of the EPC Directory Service

The European Payments Council (EPC) is announcing that the EPC Directory Service (EDS) supporting the Verification Of Payee (VOP) scheme will be launched in LIVE mode on 2 September 2025.

The VOP Scheme participants and the Routing and/or Verification Mechanism (RVMs) have been testing the EDS in an extended Pilot mode since 24 June 2024.

The go-live of the EDS on 2 September 2025 implies that:

All VOP Scheme participants and RVMs, and their users, registered during the Pilot phase, before  2 September 2025, will automatically be recognised in Live mode: there is no need for new registrations. All users will receive a notification on 2 September.

The Pilot environment will remain available for testing after go-live.

All data entered in the Pilot EDS environment before 22 August 2025 10h00 CET will be migrated to the Live environment and will be accessible as of 2 September. The data entered in the Pilot environment after the deadline of 22 August 2025 10h00 CET will not be migrated into the Live environment.

The Live environment will be accessible at the following addresses (base URLs):

EDS Web GUI: https://www.swiftrefdata.com

EDS Automated Download Service: https://api.swiftrefdata.com

EDS Consumer and Provisioning API: https://api.swift.com . Please follow the section “6.2.2 EDS API – Get access to EDS API in Live” from the EDS Onboarding and Registration Guide for activating the access to “Consumer and Provisioning API” in the Live environment

Clarification on the usage of some key data in the EDS

After go-live, the VOP Scheme participants and RVMs should take the following attention points in account:

“Scheme operational readiness date” (ORD): this is the date as of when the VOP Scheme participant will be officially adherent to the EPC VOP scheme and will be operationally ready to process VOP requests. For new entries or ORD updates, the EDS enforces the ORD to be at least the current date plus 3 calendar days (D+3).

To ensure operational readiness on 5 October 2025 (the effective date of the VOP scheme), the EPC recommends to set the ORD on “5 Oct 2025” into the EDS with sufficient time ahead, e.g. one week before this date.

“Publish in EDS local file” option must be switched ON (activated). Enabling this setting ensures that the VOP scheme participant appears in the EDS Local File. This visibility, together with the ORD, confirms the participant’s adherence to the VOP scheme and specifies the date from which its adherence takes effect.

“Start datetime” of VOP API endpoints. When entering the Responding role data in the EDS, the VOP scheme participants must set their VOP API endpoints (URI) in the EDS.

The attribute “Environment” must be set to Live.

The EDS enforces the “Start datetime” to be on or after the ORD.