Making payment without carrying money is right now the simplest thing in the world. You just have to take out the card or mobile and bring them closer to a machine. What probably does not know is that in that gesture they can intervene until … Six different financial companies, in addition to you. And of those six, It is likely that two be American. This dependence on the United States is what Europe now wants to have strategic autonomy in the payments that are made in the old continent.
To understand the future of payments in Europe it is essential to understand the environment we come from. In a card payment, everyone has a role. On the one hand is the emitter bank, which is the one that emits the ‘plastic’ to the client to pay and, on the other, the acquirer bank, which is that of the trade and the one that provides the machine to collect, the famous dataphone (TPV, technically). Among these two is where American influence appears.
Visa and Mastercard are fundamental names in all this. They appear in the wide majority of cards that we all have in the wallet. As a general rule, these two companies provide the card network, which becomes like the highway where payments travel. All banks have agreements with them and pay commissions.
The payment scheme is also in parallel, which establishes the standards and standards that regulate operations. If the payment is among national actors, the company comes into play Card and payment means system (which was born from the merger of SERVARED, 4B and EURO 600); If there is an international actor, the scheme used is that of Visa and Mastercard. Then there is also the payments processor. If the card network is the highway, the processor is the vehicle through which the transaction is managed. In Spain this function is mostly Redsysalthough they can also intervene Visa and Mastercard.
This applies in a normal payment with ‘plastic’. But now more and more the mobile has become the new payment tool. In much of the transactions that are paid with the ‘smartphone’ also enter the United States, because they are made through digital wallets where the client keeps his card and pays through there. In these wallets, the kings are Google Wallet and Apple Pay, according to the telephone operating system.
Is it possible to reduce the intervention of US companies? Yes, since there is a domestic network so that the Visa and Mastercard does not have to go, but, according to market sources, that in practice is not useful due to the configuration of the cards, banks, datáphones and shops preferences. These two companies have their main strengths in universality and their scale: they serve everyone and worldwide. “They act almost like a duopoly,” they say in the financial sector, which participates, directly or indirectly, in most European payment operations.
Europe has part of responsibility in the US dependence since Visa Europe was sold to the American matrix
The US dependence on payments in Huge and Europe has responsibility to have been wrapped. More than a decade ago, visa in the old continent was from European banks and everything was sold to the American Visa matrix. The doubts about the loss of sovereignty already emerged in the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB)but ended up approved. «Then the US was thought of as a reliable partner. Now we don’t see it so, ”they point out in the sector, sliding that this operation could be an error.
Card figures give a sample of how its use has exploited among the population. Only in Spain there are about 93 million cards and just under three million dataphone; A year, about 9,000 million operations are carried out on these machines for an amount of less than 300,000 million euros. 20% of Spanish GDP moves each year in card payments. And in much of that business they enter Visa, Mastercard, Google and Apple.
The financial sector and EU member states are fully aware of the excessive dependence of these actors, even more so that the United States has uncovered as a commercial enemy. Under this climate of distrust, the idea has been enhanced in the old continent that we have to separate, in part, of the Americans. «Aspiration is to get rid of Visa and Mastercard. But you can never do it, you can take part of the business in Europe, depend less, ”indicate financial sources.
To achieve this European autonomy and independence, in Europe it advances by two ways. And now the forecast is that both accelerate in the coming months to lay the foundations for a European community payment system for Europeans. The first one goes through a community bizum and the second for the digital euro.
European Bizum
The bet of banking is the European Bizum. When we use Bizum, the technology used is, in ‘roughly’, that of immediate transfers. Card is not required but a bank account and a telephone number. His success in Spain is resounding: more than 28 million users, and 35 ‘bizums’ to the second. In 2024, 1,100 million operations were made.
The Spanish platform is able to completely leave American operators out and gradually extends through Europe. He already connects with Andorra, and will do it shortly with Portugal and Italy. Its intention is to connect with the solutions of the rest of the community countries to, on the one hand, to be able to send money immediately in the old continent and, on the other, to make payments at any point in the EU. “Bizum is already taking traction to pay in shops,” says sources in the sector.
US dependence
In most payments in Europe they intervene in one way or another visa and mastercard through the card network, and each time they gain more Google and Apple weight with their digital wallets.
The European Bizum
The Spanish Bizum leads the initiative to connect with all other solutions from other European countries. By using transfers technology, it is able to leave out American actors.
Digital euro
It is the BCE commitment, it would work online and offline, and serve throughout Europe. Banks doubt that it contributes value to the consumer and is still aware that the regulations are developed by the EU.
An ambitious objective that runs into the Bizum of France and Germany, called Wero, whose initial aspiration is to be hegemonic throughout the continent. But the Spanish platform tends its hand: «Bizum works to build a European Unified Payment System through the interconnection of existing European solutions and others in the development and deployment phase, such as Wero. To do this, the necessary contacts between solutions that seek to explore roads of collaboration are maintained ».
Bizum, since 2024, is making strength to move towards that European system. Financial sources reveal that he is in conversations to interconnect their systems with those of Austria, Finland, Greece and Ireland, in addition to the possible contacts with Wero.
Digital euro
The other leg is the digital euro, driven by the ECB. At the end of this year or not, its launch must begin to be decided, although before the EU regulation must be. The digital euro would be complementary to that European Bizumalthough there are doubts about its implementation.
Financial sources point out that the renowned banking that it can contribute a real value to consumers, and doubt that it is necessary when there will be other types of payment solutions. The objective of this digital currency is that the EU wins strategic autonomy against the actors of the United States, and among its virtues it would be that both online and offline would work and would be universal throughout Europe.
In any case, the ball is in the political field in regards to both roads. With regard to the European Bizum, in countries there is consensus in the need to seek a continental solution with which to facilitate payments and gain independence against Americans, especially Visa and Mastercard, but tensions are generated on the formula. Similar doubts arise in some political and financial circles about the digital euro, which must be resolved among the Member States.
#European #bizum #digital #euro #weapons #rid #visa #mastercard
