16 Banks Announce Initiative to Digitalise Payments Across EU
Source: Regulation Asia Editors, Regulation Asia
The unified payment solution for consumers and merchants across Europe will encompass a payment card, digital wallet, and online and P2P payments.Sixteen banks from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain have announced a new initiative to fully digitalise payments in the EU by 2022.The so-called ‘European Payments Initiative’ will seek to “create a unified pan-European payment solution leveraging Instant Payments/SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst), offering a card for consumers and merchants across Europe, a digital wallet and P2P payments.”The banks backing the project include BBVA, BNP Paribas, Groupe BPCE, CaixaBank, Commerzbank, Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, Deutsche Bank, DSGV, DZ BANK Group, ING, KBC Group, La Banque Postale, Banco Santander, Société Générale, and UniCredit.“The solution aims to become a new standard means of payment for European consumers and merchants in all types of transactions including in-store, online, cash withdrawal and ‘peer-to-peer’ in addition to existing international payment scheme solutions,” the banks said in a joint statement. “The Covid-19 crisis has underlined the need for a unified European digital payment solution.”The implementation phase is expected to begin in the coming weeks through the creation of an interim company in Brussels, which will set out clear deliverables including the completion of the technical and operational roadmap, and initiate the implementation work. The accomplishments of this interim company will be evaluated by each founding bank before moving on to the Initiative’s final corporate structure.The ECB (European Central Bank) welcomed the Initiative as a way to address persistent fragmentation in the European payments market, pointing to national card schemes that are not accepted by other EU Member States and mobile wallets that are only offered at the national level.In November 2019, the Eurosystem relaunched its retail payments strategy, calling for increased collaboration between European stakeholders to provide payment services that meet the needs of European customers and strengthen the autonomy of the European retail payments market from global players.European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis likewise declared his support for the Initiative, and calling for European fintechs and payment services providers to join the 16 member banks in the project.
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