this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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The European Payments Initiative (EPI) is an initiative backed by 16 European banks and financial services companies to offer Wero, an payment solutionโ€ฆ

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[โ€“] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 16 points 1 week ago

Bancomat, Bizum, SIBS-MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay (all of which are members of the EuroPA Alliance) and EPI Company (EPI) jointly announce today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), marking a decisive step towards strengthening Europeโ€™s payment sovereignty.

At launch, the initiative will span 13 European countries[1], collectively already covering ~72% of the European Union and Norway population. The coalition is open to all European countries, including Switzerland and other non-euro markets

Following the MoU, the partners will establish the central interoperability entity by H1 2026, will start preparing the technical implementation of the target set-up, and conduct proofโ€‘ofโ€‘concepts (PoCs) in parallel.

Coverage of all use cases is intented by 2027 through a phased rollout:

  • In 2026: rollout of peer-to-peer (P2P) cross-border payments

  • In 2027: rollout of e-commerce and point-of-sale (POS) payments

[1] Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

[โ€“] fonix232@fedia.io 15 points 1 week ago (4 children)

What Europe needs is its own payment card network to step up against the quasi dupoly of MasterCard and Visa (AmEx and Discovery aren't that widely used or even available in Europe)

[โ€“] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Perhaps by-pass credit cards completely?

[โ€“] ClassyHatter@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 week ago

Digital Euro is coming in 2029, if their current timeline holds. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro

[โ€“] Librerian@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Norway already has the BankAxept system in wide use. It is mainly used with debit cards though, as far as I know, not credit cards. The fees for using BankAxept are lower than Visa/Mastercard for the merchants, and most debit cards from Norwegian banks have a combination of Visa/Mastercard and BankAxept functionality included. Most merchant terminals are set up to prefer the latter tech, falling back to Visa/MC if the card isn't BankAxept equipped.

So some of the tech is already there.

[โ€“] Humorless4483@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

We have Bancontact in Belgium which is independent from Visa or Mastercard.

[โ€“] bossito@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I assume the investment for that would be too high on a technology/system that might have its days numbered alrsady...

The Dutch banks have started replacing iDeal with Wero as of this year. So far it appears to only be a change of the logo and I think it will be fully adopted in a year or so.

[โ€“] g4br13l@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

In Switzerland we have Twint, itโ€™s widely used, most people have it and use it daily, Iโ€™m shocked they didnโ€™t try to jump into it with the other ones

[โ€“] cornishon@lemmygrad.ml 0 points 1 week ago

Call me skeptical, but back in Trump 1 times EU was very loud about a need for "independent alternative financial transaction system" too. They even created it, performed 1 (one) transaction and then quietly shut it down after a year.