► Europe Has Entered the Era of Real-Time Payments — Now Comes the Reporting
The European Union has been modernizing its financial infrastructure through the adoption of Regulation (EU) 2024/886 of 13 March 2024 on instant credit transfers in euro, which entered into force in spring 2024.
This regulation marked an important step toward a more integrated European payments market, where the speed of execution becomes a standard accessible to all users across the euro area.
The implementation timeline has progressively translated this ambition into operational reality.
Since 9 January 2025, payment service providers in the euro area must be able to receive instant credit transfers in euro.
The ability to send instant payments became mandatory on 9 October 2025, before a gradual extension to Member States outside the euro area in the coming years.
Beyond technological performance, the regulation pursues several key objectives:
● ensuring permanent availability of payments
● guaranteeing price parity between instant payments and traditional credit transfers
● strengthening security controls
● supporting the strategic autonomy of the European payments ecosystem
However, this transformation does not stop at the speed of transactions. It also introduces a
new layer of data-driven supervision, with 2026 marking the next major milestone.
As instant payments become the operational standard, the issue of regulatory reporting naturally emerges as its extension.
Under the Instant Payments Regulation, harmonized reporting obligations will apply from 2026, requiring institutions to submit structured information to their national competent authorities.
What initially appeared as a distant regulatory requirement is now becoming a very concrete operational deadline.
► Instant Payments Become a Supervisory Dataset
The objective of the new reporting framework goes beyond administrative compliance.
Supervisors aim to obtain a clear and comparable view of how the instant payments market actually functions across Europe.
The reporting will allow authorities to monitor:
● the level of fees applied by institutions
● the proportion of transactions rejected, particularly for regulatory reasons
● usage indicators reflecting the adoption of real-time payments across the European market
Through the standardization of the data transmitted by institutions, the European Union is creating a common foundation of comparable information across Member States.
Instant payments therefore cease to be merely a service innovation and become a continuously monitored regulatory dataset, observed almost at the same rhythm as the payment flows themselves.
For financial institutions, the nature of the challenge evolves.
Producing this reporting requires:
● consistent data quality across the entire payment chain
● processes capable of ensuring reliable and recurring data transmission
● close coordination between operations, compliance and information systems
Regulatory reporting is no longer a peripheral activity. It is increasingly embedded within the operational model of real-time payments.
The Instant Payments Regulation therefore reflects a deeper transformation of the European financial framework. Accelerating payments was only the first step.
The next step is to accelerate, with the same level of ambition, the transparency, measurement and supervision of these financial flows.
By 2026, the ability to reconcile instant transaction execution with reliable regulatory data will
become a key indicator of operational maturity for financial institutions.
In this new financial timeline, speed is no longer only about how fast money moves ► but also
about how clearly the data describing those flows can be produced and shared.
► Reporting Details
Data Requirements (EBA Templates)
The reporting framework is structured around four main templates (up to six for entities outside the euro area), which must remain fully consistent with each other.
● Template 1.1 – Volumes
Number and total value of SCT and SCT Instant credit transfers (sent and received), with a distinction between domestic and cross-border transactions.
● Template 2.1 – Fees
Detailed information on fees charged for sending and receiving SCT and SCT Instant payments (domestic vs cross-border).
● Template 3 – Accounts
Total number of payment accounts and the total amount of associated fees, including account maintenance fees.
● Template 4 – Sanctions
Number and percentage of SCT Instant transfers rejected or frozen following sanctions screening (domestic vs cross-border).
► Implementation Requirements
The first reporting exercise also includes a historical backfill requirement.
Institutions will need to produce reports covering:
● the partial period 26 October – 31 December 2022
● the full year 2023
● the full year 2024
● the full year 2025
Data must also remain consistent with other regulatory reporting frameworks, including payment statistics.
From a technical perspective, institutions must generate reporting files in XBRL format, based on the EBA taxonomy and validation rules, and submit them to their national competent authority.
The first reporting submission deadline is set for 9 April 2026, after which the reporting will become an annual requirement.
For institutions that have not yet finalized their reporting framework, the timeline is now becoming increasingly tight.
► How Opexia Can Help
At Opexia, we help financial institutions navigate exactly this type of transformation.
Our teams combine regulatory expertise and technology capabilities to support institutions in:
● Understanding the IPR regulatory framework
● Designing reporting architectures aligned with EBA taxonomies
● Implementing XBRL-based regulatory reporting
● Integrating payments data pipelines and regulatory data models
● Industrializing reporting processes through RegTech platforms
Through our Opexia RegTech solutions, we help institutions transform regulatory reporting from a compliance burden into a structured, automated and scalable capability.
► The Deadline Is Approaching
The first IPR reporting submission is scheduled for April 2026.
Preparing the required historical data, implementing XBRL reporting, and ensuring data consistency across multiple systems requires time, coordination and robust infrastructure.
Some institutions have already structured their reporting processes. Others may now be realizing that the first reporting cycle is approaching faster than expected.
If your institution is still finalizing its approach to the Instant Payments Regulation reporting requirements, you are not alone.
At Opexia, we support financial institutions at every stage of the journey ► from regulatory interpretation and gap analysis to full reporting implementation and XBRL production.
And if the deadline is approaching faster than anticipated, our teams can help you accelerate your preparation and secure your first submission with confidence.
