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Belgian banks are the first in the Eurozone to go live with Verification Of Payee
Belgian banks are the first in the Eurozone to go live with Verification Of Payee (VOP), well ahead of the October 2025 deadline set by the EU Instant Payments Regulation.
With this milestone, SurePay—the leading VOP provider in Europe—formally welcomes Belgium to its fast-expanding European VOP network.
This expansion enables banks in both Belgium and the Netherlands to conduct mutual VOP checks, offering greater security for cross-border payments across the EU, including for customers with accounts in other European countries.
A country-specific approach delivers significant advantages for Belgian banks, businesses, and consumers.
Following in the footsteps of the Netherlands and Denmark, Belgium has adopted an extended version of the standard VOP service. This enhanced model offers more informative notifications for payers, richer data for early fraud detection, and tailored support for national requirements—such as multilingual functionality (French, Dutch, and German) and the use of special characters.
The outcome is 30% greater effectiveness in fraud prevention, increased customer satisfaction, lower liability for banks, and a more secure payment experience for consumers.
SurePay now processes 200 million VOP checks per month. Once batch payment verification is added, this figure is expected to double.
This is a major step forward in creating a more secure European payment landscape.
David-Jan Janse, CEO of SurePay.
To date, over 200 banks across Europe - including 17 Belgian institutions - have selected SurePay as their trusted provider for UK Confirmation of Payee (CoP), EU Verification Of Payee (VOP) and Swift Beneficiary Account Verification (BaV).
And what’s next for Confirmation of Payee (CoP) in the UK? Click here for the latest update from Pay.UK.
Instant Payments: There are other advantages besides the preoccupation with speed
UK Interbank Payment Systems
As the debate on the future state of the UK’s interbank payment systems continues here’s a quick snapshot of the volumes and values processed by Bacs, CHAPS, Faster Payments and cheques recently published by Pay.UK.
Source: Pay.UK
Top four stats to note:
Bacs Direct Credit volumes are down 5% YoY – perhaps due to a growing migration to Faster Payments? Direct Debits have grown by 1% YoY and look set to reach the 5 billion transactions per annum milestone in the coming months.
Cheque volumes have fallen to just 87 million payments per annum, a 17% YoY reduction in volumes.
Faster Payments appear to have reached a growth plateau – growing at a strong 13% YoY increase and totalling 5.2 billion paymentyspa.
Overall interbank payment growth equates to 4% in last 12 months.
BIS Report Challenges the Hype Around Stablecoins
Interest in stablecoins has surged in recent months, driven by supportive moves from U.S. regulators, major banks exploring the launch of their own digital tokens, a strong market debut from USDC issuer Circle, and Citi forecasting the sector could reach trillions in value within five years.
However, despite their potential role in tokenization, stablecoins have fundamental shortcomings, according to a report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) on the future of monetary and financial systems.
The report argues that stablecoins fall short of the three key attributes of robust monetary frameworks:
monetary singleness (universal acceptance at face value),
elasticity (efficient settlement and liquidity), and
integrity (resilience to financial crime)—and therefore cannot serve as the cornerstone of the future monetary system.
As we consider the future pathway for stablecoins John Bertrand argues the case for stablecoins reducing the cost of cross border payments.
ECB commits to distributed ledger technology settlement plans
The European Central Bank has agreed to a dual-track strategy for integrating distributed ledger technology with Target settlement services in the wholesale market - more.
Synchronisation and beyond: enabling the next wave of financial innovation
Expanding on her remarks at the UK Finance Digital Innovation Summit, where she outlined the benefits of the renewed RTGS service, RT2, Victoria Cleland (Bank of England) recently provided an update on the BoE's plans for synchronised settlement and its programme of experiments in wholesale payments.
Victoria emphasises how the Bank is laying the groundwork for payment innovation to support wider economic benefits and growth.
More: Synchronisation and beyond: enabling the next wave of financial innovation.
Pan-African card scheme launches
The first Pan-African card scheme has launched in a move designed to bolster the continent's financial sovereignty - more.