Europe's payment giants unite to take on Visa and Mastercard
European payments groups join forces to challenge US dominance
Five European payment groups—including Spain's Bizum and Italy's Bancomat—are forming the European Network for Payments (ENP), a Madrid-based joint venture serving 130 million users across 13 countries. The network will connect national instant payment systems through a common layer, starting with cross-border person-to-person transfers, then e-commerce and point-of-sale. The move aims to reduce Europe's dependence on US card networks, though analysts say its success hinges on merchant adoption and regulatory support.
The creation of the European Network for Payments reflects a growing focus on connecting the payment systems Europeans already use, rather than replacing them.
- petcat
These all require Google or Apple devices both by the seller and the buyer. Wero explicitly does not even support non-Google Android devices.
I'm not sure that replacing Visa and MasterCard is really that big of a sovereignty move considering the pervasive dominance American mobile OS tech has. It's a much harder ecosystem to replace.
- bilekas
So many people commenting that seem to miss what this is. It's the merging of national systems to simply allow a second option. Meaning no influence oversize from the duopoly. See steam news with visa for an example of then throwing their weight.
- M95D
It's all based on phone apps, replacing Visa/Mastercard dependency with Apple and Google dependency. Far worse for privacy IMO.
- mathverse
European banks are trash and I dont believe the new payment system will be anything that will benefit the customer. It will only benefit european merchants (schwarz group for example) at the detriment of customer.
Europe is a continent in decline. I get more benefits from a Thai bank holding there a tiny amount of money than European 50bn group.
Even if Europe issues its own cards and payment system I expect them to be just shitty and me being charged extra fee abroad trying to pay with it on POS.
- pjc50
One thing I'd like to check: what are the actual exclusion rules for these systems? The Visa/MC threat to anything deemed vaguely adult content is well documented, but what is and is not allowed on Wero?