A single wrong digit in an IBAN used to feel like money vanishing with no safety net at all. Europe's payment infrastructure has genuinely changed to reduce that risk, and it matters to know exactly what protections now exist and where their real limits sit.
Instant payments and mandatory verification — already in force
Under the Instant Payments Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/886), SEPA instant transfers must be executed in under 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, at no higher cost than an ordinary transfer. To reduce transfer errors and impersonation scams, euro-area payment service providers have been legally required, since 9 October 2025, to offer a free Verification of Payee (VoP) service — this checks in real time whether the name you've entered matches the account holder registered against the IBAN, before you confirm the transfer. If VoP flags a mismatch and you proceed anyway, you generally bear liability for sending it to the wrong recipient — the protection only works if you act on the warning.
If the money has already left your account
Once a transfer has gone to the wrong IBAN, your bank can initiate a SEPA Recall request. Under the standard SEPA scheme rulebook framework, you typically need to raise this with your bank within around 10 business days of the transfer, and the receiving bank generally has about 15 business days to respond. Crucially, the receiving bank cannot simply pull funds back out of the recipient's account without that recipient's explicit consent — unless a technical processing error or clear fraud can be demonstrated.
Starting the recall correctly
Contact your bank immediately — online banking, app, or your account manager — and formally request a SEPA Recall, specifying whether the basis is "Transmission Error" (your own mistake, like a wrong IBAN digit) or "Fraud" (someone else's wrongdoing). Track the receiving bank's response status through your own bank.
If the recipient refuses to return the money
A recipient who's been correctly identified through the recall process and still refuses to return funds that were never intended for them isn't just being difficult — depending on the jurisdiction, this can constitute unjust enrichment or even a criminal matter, giving you additional legal avenues beyond the SEPA Recall mechanism itself.
If your bank failed to offer Verification of Payee
If your bank should have provided the free VoP check under the Instant Payments Regulation and didn't, and that failure directly contributed to you being defrauded, you have grounds to pursue compensation from your own bank for the resulting loss — this is a distinct claim from the SEPA Recall process itself, and worth raising separately if VoP simply wasn't offered when it should have been.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2024/886 — Instant Payments Regulation (Verification of Payee, 10-second execution)
- European Payments Council — SCT/SCT Inst Rulebook (recall procedure)