SEPA payment

• speed – the payment is credited to the Beneficiary's account immediately, or at the latest on the following banking day
• no additional costs – the payment is made in full, i.e. the Beneficiary's account is always credited with the full amount of the transfer, the Beneficiary's banking fees are charged separately (i.e. SHA fee)
• end-to-End reference – the payment contains fields to identify the payment (e.g. for the invoice number)
• verification of payee (VoP) - service that ensures the matching of the recipient's entered and real name

What is Verification of Payee (VoP)? 

Verification of Payee is a service, available from October 2025, that allows you to verify whether the entered account number matches the real beneficiary's name when entering SEPA payments (payments in EUR within the eurozone). This function significantly strengthens the security of your finances and also helps prevent errors when entering payment data. 

How does it work? 

• When entering a SEPA payment, you fill in the account number and beneficiary's name (required data). The system performs an automatic check and compares whether the data matches. 

• Verification of the beneficiary's name is performed immediately during the payment entry and therefore does not affect the processing speed. 

• The system is designed to be tolerant of minor errors, but at the same time to warn about significant discrepancies that may signal an error or a risky transaction. 
   

Possible results of the check are: 

• Match – the entered and actually registered beneficiary's name match, the payment will be processed without warning (diacritics, upper/lower case letters, special characters, legal forms of the company are not part of the compliance assessment). 

• Partial match – the system will recognize minor differences and warn you about them (e.g. typos, word order confusion, etc.). At the same time, the correct recipient name will be displayed, and the payment can be sent. 

• Mismatch – the entered name is significantly different from the registered name. You will receive a recommendation to verify the data, but the payment can be sent despite the discrepancy.

What payments does this apply to? 

• The obligation to verify the recipient’s name matches the IBAN applies to banks within the euro area and applies to both instant and standard SEPA payments. 

• VoP for bulk payments from imported files will be available on request. 

Why is this important? 

• It protects against fraudulent transfers – e.g. in situations where attackers are trying to lure a payment to someone else's account. 

• It increases trust in the security of payment transactions. 

• It helps prevent incorrectly entered SEPA payments. 

We are one of the few banks that can do it.

The obligation to implement VoP currently only applies to banks in the eurozone. UniCredit Bank is one of the few Czech banks that offers this service to its clients. This makes it one of the innovators in the field of payment security and strengthens its position as a trusted partner.

• instant payment
  • payment credited to Beneficiary in seconds
  • the maximum limit per outgoing payment shall be EUR 50,000
  • import/upload of payments is not possible (on offer from the end of 2025)

• express payment
  • payment with no limit on the amount, credited to the Beneficiary the same day
  • if the payment is not covered, the bank waits 5 banking days for the funds
  • import/upload of payments is possible

• standard payment
  • payment without limitation as to amount, credited to the Beneficiary no later than the following banking day
  • if the payment is not covered, the bank waits 5 banking days for the funds
  • import/upload of payments is possible

• standing order (for a fixed/variable amount)
• SEPA direct debit

SEPA payments can be made via the following products:

• Online Banking
• Smart Banking
• BusinessNet Professional
• Business Smart Banking
• Eltrans 2000 (Gemini 5.0)
• MultiCash
• EuropeanGate

In addition to Online Banking, Smart Banking and Business Smart Banking, the bank also enables bulk import of SEPA payments in all the above-mentioned channels.