Six national payment card schemes have announced that they are linking up to create a new pan-European payment card network. The Brussels-based alliance, named EAPS (Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes), brings together CO.GE.BAN (BANCOMAT group) of Italy, EPCS (ELECTRONIC CASH group) of Germany, EURO 6000 of Spain, LINK of the United Kingdom, SIBS (MULTIBANCO group) of Portugal and EUFISERV, a pan-European bank- and savings bank-owned organisation which manages ATM distributors in 10 European countries. The partners account for more than 222 million cards issued in Europe and over 189,000 ATMs. The network, which will be rolled out from 1 January, aims to “facilitate pan-European transactions” thanks to “the uniform EAPS acceptance mark”.