European Payments Alliance

The European Payments Alliance (EuroPA) is an initiative aiming at developing a unified European payment solution and facilitating the interoperability of mobile payment solutions provided by several firms. It was created in December 2023 by Italian interbank network Bancomat, Spanish mobile payment firm Bizum and Portuguese firm SIBS (which operates the mobile payment service MB Way). Like the European Payments Initiative (which operates Wero), EuroPa's goal is to provide a euro-owned payment system capable of wresting control away from US payment providers.

First steps

In December 2023, Bancomat, Bizum and SIBS signed a letter of intension in order to create a partnership in digital payment ^[1] .

In November 2024, Bancomat, Bizum and SIBS officially launched EuroPA (European Payments Alliance), a service allowing their respective users and clients to make instant payments using their mobile phones across the three countries (Italy, Spain and Portugal) ^[2] . The three firms also announced that they were in talks to add more firms to their partnership in order to expand their service in Europe.

On 31 March 2025, Bancomat, Bizum and MB Way launched the first instant cross-border transactions ^[3] .

In May 2025, Norwegian mobile payment service provider Vipps MobilePay and Polish mobile payment system Blik signed a letter of intent to join the EuroPA-alliance, thus expanding the reach of the interoperable system to users in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Sweden ^[4] . In June 2025, Greek firm DIAS (which operates the IRIS payment system) joined EuroPA ^[5] .

Partnerships

On 23 June 2025, the EuroPA alliance (European Payments Alliance) and European Payments Initiative announced that they will cooperate and create a partnership in order to explore solutions for developing a cross-border digital payments solution aimed at improving payment interoperability within Europe ^[6] . Such a partnership would cover 15 European countries (with a combined population of around 382 million inhabitants, amounting to 84% of the European Union and Norway) and this interconnection of existing payment solutions could provide the EU with a path towards sovereignty and independence from the US in terms of payment solutions (a market dominated by US payment card services firms like Visa; Mastercard and American Express) ^[7] .

References

1. "Spain's Bizum in mobile payments deal with Italy's Bancomat, Portugal's SIBS". Reuters. 14 December 2023.
2. "Southern European Payment Systems Group in Talks to Add Partners". Bloomberg. 13 November 2024.
3. "Cross-border instant payments between Bancomat, Bizum, and SIBS launched through EuroPA". FinTech Futures. 2 April 2025.
4. "Vipps MobilePay: Soon, you can send money to friends in Southern Europe". FinTech Futures. 5 May 2025.
5. "Greece joins EuroPA through IRIS Payments". 18 June 2025.
6. "EuroPA and EPI Launch Collaboration to Expand Sovereign Pan-European Payments". FinTech Finance News. 23 June 2025.
7. "EuroPA and EPI launch collaboration to expand sovereign Pan-European payments". 23 June 2025.

See also

• Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes, a previous failed European attempt to unify European payment systems
• European Payments Initiative, a similar initiative aiming at creating a European digital payment solution
• Instant payment