The bank moves to gestate a giant paneurpeo of payments. The European Payment Initiative (EPI) urged Tuesday to join forces between the different national systems and create a solution “that contributes to European sovereignty and independence of payments.” The association, today led by the banks of Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and owner of the “Wero” solution, advocated “cooperating with the local representative digital payment networks in Europe, in order to establish an efficient interoperability model” in an open letter signed by its 16 shareholders.
Although there are recently contacts between EPI and the project led by the Spanish Bizum and the twin schemes of Portugal (SIBS) and Italy (Bancomat Pay), the statement prints a script twist in the face of the previous strategy of developing almost competing platforms. Entities such as Deutsche Bank, ING, Societé Genoele, Groupe BPCE, Credit Mutuel, KBC Bank, Rabobank and Payment Platforms such as Wordline and Nexi are included in their shareholders. And in the letter, which Rubrica EPI and its shareholders, explains that the different current payment initiatives can already “achieve very widely the sovereignty of payments throughout Europe, through their cooperation and future developments, starting from the client base and the level of use already existing currently existing.”
Its proposal is to interconnect the systems through a common acceptance solution in shops, shared between these European networks, to ensure that European consumers can pay anywhere in Europe, while allowing the different initiatives to continue “focusing on their respective development and growth.” In markets or countries that lack solutions, they could, he exposes, adopt some of the existing ones.
A proposal that also changes the original strategy with which it was configured the EPI in 2020, with the support of a European Central Bank (ECB) concerned with gesturing a solution of continental payments, which does not depend on US giants as now. In its origin, Spanish banks also participated, together with those of Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands; and Italian and Portuguese entities, among others. The supervisor applauded the initiative to concern that payments do not depend on international signatures that impose the rules, referring to Visa and Mastercard systems and the SWIFT bank messaging system.
From the original EPI scheme, the Portuguese, Spanish and Italian banks over time for the high cost involved in the construction of a platform from scratch when they already had their own platforms such as Bizum, and due to the development of the project that dilated over time. While Epi created Wero, Bizum is union with the European Association of Mobile Payment Systems (EMPSA), created precisely to advance a continental scheme by interconnectioning the systems and has already begun to operate with Bancomat Pay (Italy), Sibs (Portugal), joining Spain and Andorra by Bizum’s hand.
The EPI bank calls for forces to gain sovereignty: “Europe must find its way to sovereignty and independence in payments. It is no longer a project for the future, but a need that all European countries face. We must actively work on a viable solution that contributes to European sovereignty and independence of payments,” he encourages in the same. The need to have this autonomy has become more palpable with strategy changes in the United States.
In its open letter he states that financial entities have prepared the way for years by developing local and European alternatives, taking advantage of the EU on immediate payments regulations, developed by European regulators, which has entered into force this year.
“Our goal is to respond to this challenge through an unique immediate payments solution, all in one, Paneuropea and capable of covering over time all the use cases required by consumers and shops. This is the foundational principle and the mission that we proposed, from the beginning, in Epi Company SE (EPI),” he says.
The EPI solution, Wero is based on immediate payments and offers consumers and businesses a seamless alternative to international card schemes, “which is comparable to the most advanced solutions worldwide.” Its scheme can operate in all European markets for both local and cross -border transactions. Currently, Wero already has more than 40 million registered users and is totally operational for P2P and P2Pro payments, he says.
Wero has been designed as a wallet that will allow integrating other payments and services other than payments. His next step of EPI will be to launch payments in electronic commerce as of this summer in Germany and Belgium, followed by France and the Netherlands next year. His intention is that at the end of 2026 he covers both payments in electronic commerce and via mobile, and add omnichannel payments, payments in stores and invoices payments.
As Wero was created from the origin as a paneurpea solution, he points out that it allows the accession of other financial entities and European acquirers incorporating as shareholders or members of the platform.
#FrancoGerman #bizum #advocates #joining #forces #creating #European #payments #Visa #Mastercard
