The decision by 16 European banks from Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain to launch the European Payments Initiative (EPI) on Thursday 2 July was widely welcomed, and considered extremely promising at a time when the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the need for a single European digital payment solution.
Describing the project as “revolutionary”, the European Commission said this initiative was in line with its ambition to “ensure that European consumers and businesses should have access to fast, efficient and competitive payment solutions”.
The aim of this project is to create a single pan-European payment solution that makes instant payments, offering a bank card to consumers and merchants across Europe, combined with a digital wallet and person-to-person (P2P) payment solutions.
According to its founders, “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 withdrawals”.
The initiative is supported by the European Central Bank (ECB), which stressed in a statement that it should cover all euro area countries and eventually the whole European Union.
The European Banking Federation (EBF), the European Association of Cooperative Banks (EACB) and the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) welcomed a promising initiative, which “provides an important impetus for the further evolution of Europe’s payments landscape”. In their view, the EPI also addresses several items identified in a joint paper that they published in April (see EUROPE 12459/15).
According to the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, this type of initiative is “the key to a Europe with independent and sovereign payments, at a time when there is a blossoming of initiatives such as the Libra project”.
Heading for 2022
The start of the implementation phase is expected to materialise in the coming weeks with the creation of a temporary structure, based in Brussels, which will be responsible for designing the infrastructure.
The EPI should be operational in 2022. By then, the founders hope that new banks and payment service providers will have joined the project. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)