Large European banks eye creating rival to Visa & MasterCard

More than 30 of Europe’s largest banks and credit card processors are trying to create a payments giant capable of shattering a US-dominated “oligopoly,” Report informs referring to the Financial Times.

A Brussels-based venture, which currently employs 40 payment experts, has until September to draw up a blueprint for a pan-European payments service that can be used to pay online as well as in stores, to settle bills between individual consumers and to withdraw cash at ATMs.

“The idea is to build a European payment champion that can take on PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Google and Apple,” said Joachim Schmalzl, the chair of the European Payment Initiative.

The banks and acquirers behind the initiative include Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, ING, UniCredit and Santander and currently process more than half of all payments in Europe. The project has the backing of the European Commission as well as the euro area’s financial regulators.

EPI has so far received more than €30m from its backers, said Schmalzl.

The first real-world applications - a system for electronic real-time payments between consumers - could be launched in early 2022, while a broader payments tool could follow in the second half of next year, said Schmalzl.