Instant payments became more common in 2025

With instant payments, money can be transferred to the recipient in seconds at any time of day. National instant payment systems have existed previously in several countries. However, the European SEPA¹ instant credit transfers operate under common rules and standards, which enable instant payments to be made across countries. The vast majority of instant payments made in Finland are SEPA instant credit transfers.

SEPA instant credit transfers have been available since 2017², but were initially used by only a limited number of European banks. The Instant Payments Regulation, which was phased in during 2025, aims to make instant payments more widely available to customers. Another aim of the Regulation is to improve the security of payments and prevent payment fraud³. Banks have been obliged since October 2025 to offer a service to verify the name of the payee. Since last October, customers have therefore received a warning from their bank before making a credit transfer if the name of the payee they entered does not match the account holder.

A larger share of credit transfers sent than before are now made as instant payments. A total of 645 million credit transfers were made to Finland and abroad in the second half of 2025, of which 79 million (12.3%) were instant payments. The share of instant payments rose by 3 percentage points from the second half of 2024. Since January 2025, all euro area banks have been required to receive instant payments, and since October 2025 they have also been required to send them. This regulatory change is also visible in the statistics: the share of instant payments sent increased by 2 percentage points from the first half of 2025 to the second half. Around 20 million more instant payments were made than in the corresponding period in 2024.

Although the number of instant payments has increased, their share of the total value of credit transfers still remains small. Of the total EUR 1,898 billion in credit transfers made to Finland and abroad in the second half of 2025, 5.3% were sent as instant payments. The share rose by 1 percentage point from the first half of the year. Finnish banks sent abroad credit transfers worth EUR 401 billion, of which only EUR 8 billion (2.1%) were instant payments.

Originally, the maximum amount that could be transferred as an instant payment was EUR 100,000, but currently there is no regulatory limit on the amount. Payment service providers and customers themselves may, however, set their own limits.

Some of the figures discussed in this news release have been published in the semi-annual dashboard on payment statistics.

The statistical data are also available via an API from the Bank of Finland’s open data portal. For details, see https://www.suomenpankki.fi/en/statistics/open-data/.

Further information:

• Usva Topo, tel. +358 9 183 2056, email: usva.topo(at)bof.fi.
• Olli Tuomikoski, tel. +358 9 183 2925, email: olli.tuomikoski(at)bof.fi.

The next semi-annual news release on payment statistics will be published at 10 a.m. on 10 December 2026.

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¹ Single Euro Payments Area.

² More information on the history of instant payments: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-instant-credit-transfer

³ More information on retail payments in Europe: What should be done to improve the autonomy of European retail payments? – Bank of Finland Bulletin