SEPA Instant Progress, or the lack of it...

Okokokoknic said:
EBS have maintenance scheduled for Thursday night, maybe they are introducing this functionality then, or it might be unrelated:
Click to expand...

Evidently this was unrelated.
Transfers from EBS to Revolut arrive around 5am the next day - presumably when Revolut next process a transfer file after EBS have sent it on.

Just attempted another transfer and nothing has come in on Revolut yet.
 
Update arrived earlier in the AIB app for me, with SEPA Instant payments available. Tested with a transaction to N26 and it went through as expected in <10 seconds which is great.

Only slight inconvenience is that you're given a choice of whether you want to send using "Standard" or "Instant" and it defaults to Standard. I assume that's because not every account supports SEPA Instant though, so fair enough.
 
Updated the AIB app on my phone and successfully completed a SEPA instant transfer to N26. VOP message a bit odd,”we tried to check the name you entered but we weren’t able to” so looks like VOP isn’t yet operational on the N26 side. Which is OK as the deadline is still a couple of days away (9th)

Also successfully completed a SEPA instant transfer to BOI. The VOP message warned that the names didn’t match. This was a result of AIB’s longstanding stupidity of using the Payee Name as the Nickname used for storing the payee details. The have finally sorted this out in the latest app update and Payee Name and Nickname are now stored separately - a long overdue fix. Once I updated the stored Payee Name the transfer proceeded without issue.
 
BOI are live also, but not yet for Business accounts, so Business users are defaulted to instant, and they have to select Standard:
https://www.bankofireland.com/business-sepa-instant-payment/

SEPA Instant payment option on our 365 mobile app and 365 online for Business Customers will launch soon. We’ll let you know by putting a message on our app. In the meantime, please use the SEPA Standard option.​

Click to expand...
To ensure your payment is processed correctly please follow the below steps:

  • The default option for payments on the 365 mobile app and 365 online is SEPA Instant.
  • In order to process a payment you need to select the SEPA Standard payment option for all payments for now.
  • The SEPA Instant payment option is coming soon for business accounts.
  • If you select the SEPA Instant payment option your payment will not be processed.
  • The future dated payment option is also available.
Click to expand...

BOI also have issues with VoP and name length - I'm sure most of the non fintechs will have a problem with this:
https://personalbanking.bankofireland.com/ways-to-bank/mobile-banking/verification-of-payee-vop/

Payee name character limits on the 365 mobile app and 365 online​

Currently, when you set up a payee, the maximum number of characters you can use for their name is:

  • 22 characters including spaces for regular payees
  • 18 characters including spaces for standing orders.
We will let you know at the time, if your payee name is over the character limit.

We’re working to increase these limits soon, making it easier to enter full payee names.

Thank you for your patience.
Click to expand...


PTSB have a maintenance notice for Tuesday night.
EBS have a maintenance notice for Wednesday morning.
 
PTSB are now also live.

Problem with the Verification too for my tests.

But transferring is multiple screens and at then end you can change from Sepa instant to Sepa standard for some reason.

At least it’s there before the deadline.
 
DublinTexas said:
PTSB are now also live.
Click to expand...
App is down for me right now...

Screenshot_20251007_224335.webp
 
Hello,

With regards to the AIB option of either an instant or "standard" transfer, why might someone want the slow version ?
 
Could they charge differently for instant versus "slow"?
Does "slow" do the same verification of payee that instant does?

Edit: just checked and the sender can't be charged anything extra for instant versus "slow". But it looks like the recipient could potentially be charged more?

Edit 2: and verification of payee seems to apply to both instant and "slow" so scratch my comments above. :D
 
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SEPA Instant now live for EBS - and working :)

I get a warning about the beneficiary name not matching - despite me changing my beneficiary name earlier in the week after VoP was introduced.

EBS also now has an option to set a SEPA Instant Daily Limit & SEPA Instant Transaction Limit via Online Banking.
 
BOI instant transfer to N26 and some other banks works as well.
But: looks like BOI doesn’t do account nicknames. I have a few own accounts in other banks (like the N26 one))
So now I can’t name the payee in BOI e.g. “My N26 current account” without getting that “the name doesn’t match” warning - or having to remember which IBAN is the right one.
Great user experience job there, Bank of Ireland.

Edit: also, of course you can’t edit the account name, but have to delete and re-create the payee. The mind boggles.
 
For the more nerdy posters and anybody who has ever worked on “name matching” in a database, the rules around name matching for VOP will probably be a matter of interest and stress in some cases !

The European Payments Council rules are here and they deal with things such as diacritics and accents (important in an Irish context because of the prevelance of Sean vs Séan and ONeill vs O’Neill vs O Neill vs Oneill.

Having looked through the rules these appear to be the key points for natural persons (legal persons such as companies names are treated differently):
  • Upper case and lower case letters are treated as being the same when matching
  • Generally, accents and diacritics are ignored (this is an oversimplification)
  • Titles are ignored (Dr, Ms etc)
  • Blank spaces and the majority of non-alphabetic/numeric characters are removed prior to matching
  • An exact match is where the first name and last name match exactly, so middle names/initials are ignored
It will be interesting to see how this works in practice especially with the tricky ones such as joint accounts, non-western names, names with spelling variations etc. and where the demarcation between “exact match” and “close match” lies !
 
newirishman said:
But: looks like BOI doesn’t do account nicknames. I have a few own accounts in other banks (like the N26 one))
So now I can’t name the payee in BOI e.g. “My N26 current account” without getting that “the name doesn’t match” warning - or having to remember which IBAN is the right one.
Click to expand...
They sort of have it, in that they’re is a field named “Description” on the payee details where you can put in “My N26 CA” separate from the Payee Name field. The issue is that this isn’t immediately visible when the list of payees selection screen is displayed during the payment process, although it does appear later on a verification screen. So it is there, just poorly utilised and I’d agree that it is an example of poor UX design/testing.

What more annoying/stupid is the fact that BOI won’t let you update an existing payee to correct the name, you have to delete the payee and re-create it. That a total “Nul points” for the BOI UX people.
 
balders93 said:
For instance mortgage accounts and CC accounts at different ins
Click to expand...
It’s early days but as usual inconsistency is the name of the game. For example, in respect of payments to credit cards AIB says:

Which AlB accounts can I use to send and receive SEPA instant payments?
Click to expand...
• If you have any of the following accounts with AIB in the Republic of Ireland, you'll be able to send and receive SEPA Instant payments:
Personal Demand Deposit Account
Demand Deposit Account
Online Saver Account
Youth Savings Account
Basic Bank Account
Advantage Account
Student Account
Student Plus Account
Graduate Account
Business Start Up Account
Business Current Account (incl. Young Farmer Account)
Personal Bank Account
Masterplan Account
Junior / Student Saver
AIB (NI) Euro Current Accounts (digital channels only)
• The following accounts can receive SEPA Instant payments:
AIB Corporate, Business and Purchasing Cards
AIB All Personal Credit Cards
Click to expand...

whereas BOI says

When can I receive SEPA Instant payments into my account?

Since 9 January 2025, you've been able to receive SEPA Instant payments into your payment accounts (for example, your current account) 24 hours a day, any day of the year. Accounts that cannot receive SEPA Instant payments include and mortgages certain deposit accounts credit card accounts and Global Market accounts
Click to expand...

So AIB allows SEPA Instant inbound to AIB CC but BOI does not allow SEPA Instant inbound to BOI CC. Go figure.
 
Just got notification in the AIB app that I can now send SEPA Instant Payments from my mobile app. "...instant euro payments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week , with funds usually arriving within seconds. There are no additional fees for sending SEPA Instant Payments."

I haven't had occasion to use it yet. Anyone want to test their version with me and the mutt in receive-only mode? :)

AIB App Version 4.7.6.1 on iOS 26.0.1
 
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