site.btaBulgaria Has Until January 2027 to Adopt Instant Payment Regulation, Says Director of Payment Supervision at National Bank

Mihail Dimov, Director of the Payment Supervision Directorate at the Banking Department of the Bulgarian National Bank, said Bulgaria has one year after adopting the euro, until 1 January 2027, to implement the provisions of the EU Instant Payments Regulation (IPR). He addressed the DIGI Pay conference on digital payments, held at the Inter Expo Center in Sofia on Tuesday.

He said that instant payments would not become mandatory for Bulgaria until after January 1, 2027, as this is the deadline set out in the IPR. A special provision for countries such as Bulgaria states that the deadline for implementing the Regulation is one year after the introduction of the euro.

Regarding fraud prevention in instant payments, Dimov said the IPR also covers the Verification of Payee (VoP) service, which will become mandatory for all eurozone countries on October 9, 2025. For Bulgaria, the deadline for implementing these provisions is once again January 1, 2027.

Dimov said that payment security is a key concern for all participants in the payment process, especially amid increasing digitization and rising risks of fraud and cyberthreats.

He added that, in recent years, the Bulgarian National Bank's focus within its supervisory mandate was on thoroughly establishing customer identity and strictly applying this to payment service providers in accordance with regulatory requirements.

Unfortunately, while technological progress has had a positive influence on the development of new verification methods and client identification, it has also given rise to new types of fraud and ever-more sophisticated methods of committing them. Technological progress goes hand in hand with new types of scam, showing that thorough identity verification alone is insufficient to counter fraud. For this reason, the central bank's activity is focused on another anti-fraud mechanism: payment monitoring. This is a process that payment providers must undertake to identify unauthorized fraudulent payments. 

Dimov said this year the BNB is reviewing the mechanisms used by payment service providers to monitor payment transactions. The review will cover not only the technological solutions used by providers, but also the organization of the monitoring process as a whole, including documented rules and procedures. The review will also assess whether periodic reviews of risk factors are conducted and how these are calibrated to reflect the constantly evolving nature of fraud. Plans also include reviewing how effectively the rules for blocking affected payment instruments work, as well as conducting regular audits by payment providers, he said. Furthermore, payment service providers will be required to block payment transactions suspected of being unauthorized.