SEPA Instant Payments
Is your bank ready for the new European SEPA instant payments legislation (IPR)?
By October 2025, all banks in Europe offering payment services must also be able to support instant payments, and those transactions must be completed within about 10 seconds. This is completely different to current practices.
The new laws are quite complex, and not every bank will have the in-house knowledge required to understand them and then put changes into practice.
In the Netherlands, SEPA Instant Payments is implemented as ‘the new normal’. It has been in place for a couple of years now and our Projective Group experts working there have deep knowledge and understanding of the instant payments process.
We offer clients solutions for any of the three-phases they are going through; solution from ‘Awareness’ of the new SEPA legislation, through ‘Design’ and ‘Implementation’.
Enabling Instant Payment transactions requires a complete redesign of the current payments processes.
A three-phased solution
Not all banks are even sure if the IPR regulations will apply to them. Many don’t understand the legislation and find it complex, yet don’t know who to turn to for help. Others feel that their response is already behind schedule and want to accelerate the process.
To explain, SEPA Instant Payments is a scheme that allows those using it to make and receive payments in a matter of seconds across the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA).
The timelines to implement the Instant Payments (IPR) legislation are –
- EUR country: Jan 2025 (Incoming) and Oct 2025 (outgoing)
- Non-EUR country: Jan 2027 (incoming) and July 2027 (outgoing) /EMI/PI – Apr 2027
At Projective Group, our experts have devised a three-phase solution.
Awareness phase
Firstly, we help you to understand what it means to become a participant and make you aware of the value instant payments can bring to your bank. We provide a SEPA quick scan, an awareness workshop and trainings.
Design phase
The second stage is to help you to design a solution that considers best practices and addresses Key Design Decisions. We can help you with vendor selection, business analysis and project-management.
Implementation
The final stage will be implementation. This will include working through risk assessments, CSM certifications and operational procedures as well as looking at out-of-the-box test cases and scenarios to avoid any surprises when going live.
Why Projective Group?
Projective Group will help you to understand how the new IPR legislation will apply to your bank and then respond to it by making the appropriate changes to processes, IT and organisation.
We take a structured approach to tackling key design decisions and work first to increase your understanding of the legislation and then to unravel its complexities.
Projective Group offers pan-European and unmatched expertise with a vast number of strategists, compliance officers, payment (platform) experts, data management and security specialists ready to respond to the demands of the IPR legislation. As it is already in place in the Netherlands, our specialists there have deep knowledge of how to design and implement an end-to-end solution.
Timelines are tight. Within the Eurozone, banks must be able to send and receive instant payments by October of 2025. For those banks outside the eurozone that deadline is extended to July 2027. That same year applies to Payment Institutions or Electronic Money Institutions.
We also want to ensure that clients are best placed to embrace the new opportunities to be afforded by the SEPA instant payments process. At Projective Group we don’t work for our clients, we work with them.