A Verification of Payee request has to reach the bank that holds the destination account. But how does the requesting side know which bank that is, and how to reach it? The EPC Directory Service (EDS) is the answer: a central directory, maintained for the scheme, that maps participating PSPs to the routing mechanism (RVM) that serves them.
What the EDS contains
- Which PSPs participate in the scheme, identified for routing.
- Which RVM each responding PSP can be reached through.
- The information a requesting PSP or RVM needs to deliver a request to the right place.
Why it matters operationally
The directory changes as PSPs join, leave or switch RVM. A requesting party working from a stale view can mis-route requests or fail to reach a counterparty. Staying synchronised with the EDS is therefore an ongoing operational task, not a one-off setup.
- 1 Consume the directory so routing decisions reflect current participants.
- 2 Refresh on the scheme's cadence so new and changed entries are picked up.
- 3 Handle the edge cases — a PSP not found, or recently changed — gracefully in your flow.
The directory is plumbing, not product
Your users never see the EDS. They just expect a fast, correct answer — which depends on routing being right underneath.
RoxPay consumes and keeps pace with directory and routing changes for you, so requests reach the right responding PSP without you maintaining a directory integration — one less moving part to run.