European Card Payment Association calls for EU payments sovereignty
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The EPCA has released a white paper which shows that in 2024 there were over 263 million European Card Scheme (ECS) payment cards in circulation, which made 31.5 billion transactions last year alone.
However, the payments space is dominated by Visa and Mastercard, who between them process 65% of euro area card payments, while US tech giants such as Apple, Google and PayPal are also gaining popularity.
The EPCA's paper explores the urgent need to protect the sovereignty over payment infrastructure in Europe offered by ECSs, amid challenges such as the current American administration's increasingly isolationist approach or unpredictable geopolitical events such as the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
The strategy calls for the development of a comprehensive payments and industrial policy that ensures at least one EU-based payment method is always available to European consumers and businesses alongside the continued development and widespread adoption of European open standards, such as CPACE.
This should be coupled with regulatory measures that focus on ensuring a level playing field between ECS and global players as well as mechanisms to facilitate infrastructure sharing and cross-border acceptance agreements between European stakeholders.
The white paper's conclusions align with the European Commission's focus on strategic autonomy in payments. It launches as Christine Lagarde,pPresident of the European Central Bank, called in April for a 'march towards independence' from international payment platforms.
It's a message backed by the bank-backed European Payments Initiative, which in April called on local European digital payment networks to co-operate in building a shared merchant acceptance infrastructure, ensuring interoperability, scalability, and cross-border functionality
Juan Carlos Martín, chairman, ECPA, comments: 'To safeguard Europe's financial future, resilience and autonomy, particularly at a time when economic relationships between nations can quickly sour, it is of the utmost importance that the sovereignty and cooperation unique to Europe's card schemes is enthusiastically supported by all stakeholders.
"Control over payment infrastructure is inseparable from true economic sovereignty, and financial and regulatory institutions across the continent must prioritise collaboration that achieves this for the entire European continent.'
The call for action has been heeded by Giesecke & Devrient, which has announced plans to launch a multi-application card offering access to local domestic networks for in-store and online purchases across several countries. Stella (Sovereign Technical European initiative Leveraging Local Assets), connects with over 300 million cards criculated by domestic European card schemes. The card will also offer full interoperability with Visa and Mastercard "but only where necessary".
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