Connecting national payment services
Five European payment groups have agreed to form a joint venture that will connect their existing systems across national borders, creating a shared network intended to reduce the region's dependence on Visa and Mastercard. The European Network for Payments, or ENP, will be based in Madrid and begin with person-to-person transfers before expanding to online and in-store purchases.
The founders are Bancomat, Bizum, EPI Company, which operates Wero, SIBS with MB WAY, and Vipps MobilePay. Together, the services say they reach about 130 million users in 13 countries, representing more than 70 percent of the population of the European Union and Norway. Other payment schemes may be invited to join later.
Rather than replacing the brands and applications people already use, ENP plans to connect them through a common technical and operational layer. Transfers will use European standards and instant account-to-account payment infrastructure. The phased approach is intended to address a longstanding obstacle: domestic services can be widely adopted in their home markets but stop at the border, leaving international card networks with an advantage in scale and acceptance.
A sovereignty project with commercial tests ahead
European policymakers have increasingly described payments as strategic infrastructure. The concern is that heavy reliance on companies headquartered outside the region could create economic and operational vulnerabilities as international relationships become less predictable. ENP's organizers frame their network as a step toward greater European control of everyday transactions.
The project is separate from the European Central Bank's proposed digital euro. The payment companies said a digital euro, currently planned for possible introduction by 2029, could eventually complement their work. ENP is a private-sector connection among existing systems, while the digital euro would be central-bank money distributed to users through intermediaries such as banks and payment providers.
The new venture has selected a chief executive and expects to recruit staff. Its shareholders will bear operating costs during the early build-out while the network works toward enough transaction volume to support itself through fees. That period will test whether technical connection can translate into routine consumer and merchant use.
Cross-border person-to-person payments are the planned first stage because they offer a narrower implementation target than widespread retail acceptance. E-commerce and point-of-sale transactions are due to follow. Success in those later phases will depend on banks, merchants and consumers seeing enough benefit to adopt the shared layer.
The announcement establishes broad reach on paper, but it does not guarantee a unified European competitor to the global card networks. Regulation, political support and merchant acceptance will shape the result. ENP's immediate significance is more concrete: major domestic payment providers have chosen interconnection over building another entirely new consumer brand, giving their existing users a proposed route across borders.
