European payment networks band together to challenge Visa and Mastercard

A group of established European payment schemes, including Bancomat, Bizum, Wero, Sibs-MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay, have announced plans to link their systems into a single cross-border network. Each of these apps and schemes is already widely used within its own country for everyday payments and transfers, but until now they have largely operated in isolation from one another. The new alliance aims to connect these national systems so that payments can move between countries without relying on the infrastructure of Visa or Mastercard, the two US networks that currently handle the vast majority of European card transactions.

The stated goal is to give European consumers and merchants another option alongside the US giants, reducing dependence on a small number of dominant networks and potentially lowering the fees that get passed on to shoppers and businesses. European regulators and central banks have voiced similar concerns for years, pointing out that having so much payment infrastructure routed through two foreign companies creates both cost and strategic exposure. This initiative is a commercial attempt to address that, building on national payment habits that are already well established rather than trying to introduce a brand-new system from scratch.

For now, this is a long-term structural development rather than something that changes how people pay today. The schemes involved will need time to agree on technical standards, settlement processes and participating banks before cross-border payments between, say, a Bizum user in Spain and a Vipps MobilePay user in Norway become a practical reality. It is also not yet clear how card issuance, foreign exchange handling, and merchant acceptance abroad will work in practice, which are all areas where Visa and Mastercard currently have a significant head start through decades of global merchant relationships.

For someone comparing ways to send money internationally or spend while traveling, the near-term impact is minimal. Visa and Mastercard remain the default rails behind most multi-currency cards, bank transfers and remittance services, and that is unlikely to change quickly even if this alliance succeeds. That said, it is a reminder that the payments landscape is not fixed, and that new entrants, especially ones backed by domestic banks and regulators, can eventually reshape fee structures and consumer choice. In the meantime, the most direct way to reduce costs when spending or transferring money abroad is still to compare what providers currently charge, since card network dynamics aside, fees and exchange rate margins vary widely between services. Anyone weighing up options for holding or spending multiple currencies can see how providers currently stack up on fees at FairAscent's multi-currency banking comparison.

This article was drafted with AI assistance as part of our editorial process.

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