The pan-European payments initiative benefits from links to many of Europe’s largest banks – and has fintech in its sights.
Whether it’s Paypal, Apple Pay, Visa or Mastercard, US payments companies are taking over in Europe. Can the European Payments Initiative (EPI) – helped by the commitment of flows from banks in continental Europe’s biggest economies – challenge them?
At a basic level, EPI is the germ of a pan-European successor to national bank-owned debit card networks such as Carte Bancaire in France, GiroPay in Germany, and Bancomat in Italy.
But the idea behind EPI is also that a pan-European provider will have the scale to make the kinds of investment in technology that national schemes cannot afford.