Europe Unites Against Visa and Mastercard with New Cross-Border Payments Network

European payment groups are joining forces to create a cross-border payments network, reducing the continent's reliance on US-based Visa and Mastercard. The new joint venture, European Network for Payments (ENP), will be based in Madrid and connect national payment systems across 13 European countries. ENP's founders include Bancomat, Bizum, EPI Company/Wero, SIBS-MB WAY, and Vipps MobilePay, which together serve around 130 million users, covering more than 70% of the EU and Norway's population.

The network will use a common technical and operational layer based on European standards to enable instant account-to-account payments. This move comes as Europe seeks to achieve payments sovereignty, with the European Central Bank planning for a digital euro by 2029. According to Martina Weimert, CEO of the European Payments Initiative, fragmentation has been the 'biggest hurdle' for European payment schemes.

ENP's shareholders will need to absorb operating costs in the early years as the company builds infrastructure and achieves sufficient scale to generate its own fees. The network plans a phased rollout with cross-border person-to-person payments, followed by e-commerce and point-of-sale transactions.