Less than 24 hours before the EU’s October 9 instant payments deadline comes into force, experts are questioning whether banks and payment service providers are ready.
From October 9, banks and payment providers across the euro area must be able to send instant payments within 10 seconds. It is the second major deadline under the EU’s Instant Payments Regulation, following the first in January.
The new rules require institutions to send instant credit transfers, use Verification of Payee, apply stronger fraud prevention checks and make sure instant payments do not cost more than standard transfers.
A transformative moment with challenges
Instant payments are expected to pass $100trn globally by 2029, according to Juniper Research.
“The October deadline represents a transformative moment for Europe’s payments landscape,” said Laurent Descout, CEO and co-founder at Neo.
Under the new rules, payments can be sent and received at any time, including weekends and public holidays. The removal of the €100,000 transaction cap, which has applied in many member states, is expected to increase adoption among corporates and speed up cash management strategies.
However, this also brings new challenges. Descout explained with the cap removed, firms need stronger liquidity buffers.
Additionally, many firms also rely on legacy systems, which will now have to support faster payments, better security and round-the-clock availability.
Some of these changes involve Verification of Payee, fraud prevention and real-time liquidity forecasting. Mike Walters, CEO at Form3, said these “are no longer nice-to-haves; they are essential.”
Walters added he fears too many firms are treating this second deadline as a “tick-boxing compliance exercise” before noting the true innovation will only come once banks and payments providers meet these requirements.
“Product offerings such as instant refunds for e-commerce, real-time treasury management for corporates or varying access models,” he said.
“A cloud-native and resilient tech stack will be crucial to delivering these customer experiences and unlocking their competitive advantage.”
Descout echoed this view that the deadline is not the end goal but just the starting point.
“While these demands may seem daunting, they create opportunity. Firms that adopt modern infrastructure and partner with innovative fintechs can turn compliance into a competitive advantage.”
Are banks ready?
The banking sector faces the biggest test. Grant Harper, Global Lead for Financial Services at ITRS, warned that even the briefest service interruption could have serious consequences under SEPA Instant.
“The implications of downtime for any bank are serious, but the consequences are even more profound under SEPA Instant,” he said.
“Even a brief outage could prevent a bank from sending or receiving payments, risking compliance breaches, customer dissatisfaction, and long-term reputational damage.”
UK banks do not face this deadline until July 2027, but recent records of outages suggest the extra time will be useful. Between January 2023 and February 2025, the top nine UK banks suffered at least 158 IT failures. These incidents added up to more than 803 hours of unplanned outages.
Harper noted banks should use this time to strengthen their technology. He suggested investment in comprehensive IT monitoring and observability should be the first step. Real-time visibility, he explained, can help institutions detect problems early and prevent them from escalating.
“Real-time alerts – not minutes or hours later – are essential,” he said. “A unified ‘single pane of glass’ view across the IT estate enables tech teams to detect and resolve issues before they impact the bank’s ability to process transactions in seconds.”
