Overview

The pan-European request to pay (R2P) infrastructure service was developed and implemented with the support of 27 PSPs from 11 European countries for the 15 June 2021 launch date of the SEPA Request-to-Pay Scheme created by the European Payments Council (EPC). 

R2P provides a real-time messaging layer supporting a standardised and managed exchange of request to pay messages on a pan-European level. Separated from the end-user solutions and payment infrastructure layers, R2P is use case and payment channel agnostic.

A pan-European request to pay service is seen as the missing piece of the puzzle to realise the full potential of instant payments. Request to pay end-user services built on top of such a messaging infrastructure are expected to increase certainty, transparency and convenience of payment processes, for instance by speeding up the end-to-end process, reducing risk and easing reconciliation.

In response to growing market demand for new and enhanced payment solutions that leverage existing payment infrastructures and instruments in SEPA, EBA CLEARING began to investigate the possibilities of request to pay in 2018.

In November 2018, EBA CLEARING launched a task force composed of experts from financial institutions across Europe to work on a blueprint for a pan-European request to pay infrastructure solution. The task force delivered a blueprint in early 2019 that set out a thin-layer infrastructure based on real-time messaging and separated from both end-user solutions and the payment infrastructure layer.

In Q2 2019, EBA CLEARING launched a call for funding to which 27 financial institutions from 11 European countries responded positively. In September 2019, R2P entered its development phase. A first version of its specifications was published in December 2019.