"French President Emmanuel Macron has called for a sovereign European payment system, broadcaster BFM TV reported. In a video message to the French Card Payment (Carte Bancaire) summit on Tuesday, he said payment systems are "an essential part of our sovereignty.” "We must build a sovereign payment model," Macron said, referring to European solutions such as Wero, developed under the European Payments Initiative (EPI). It is designed to compete with services such as PayPal or Apple Pay while keeping financial flows and data in Europe."