“Cash is still the most frequently used means of payment at the point of sale, but its share is declining according to the latest study on the payment attitudes of consumers in the euro area, published today by the European Central Bank (ECB). Cash was used for 59% of point-of-sale transactions in 2022, down from 72% in 2019. It is the means of payment most often used for small-value payments in stores and for person-to-person transactions.”

“The European Central Bank released on 29th September 2022, their latest progress report on the investigation phase of their digital euro project and elaborates on foundational design features approved by the Governing Council. The report highlights key operational transfer mechanism requirements for the digital euro including:  Online validation by third-parties; Offline functionality (where payee or payer are not connected to the internet) and peer-to-peer validation; Privacy level at least equal to current private sector digital solutions; Compatibility with current regulatory framework.”

“Tink, Europe’s leading open banking platform, and Revolut, the global financial super app with more than 18 million customers worldwide, have entered into a strategic partnership for open banking technology.  Tink’s payment initiation services (PIS) technology will allow Revolut users across Europe to seamlessly move money into their Revolut account. PIS enables users to connect to the bank account they want to move money from, and instantaneously authorise and complete the payment without leaving the Revolut app.”

“Modulr, the embedded payments platform, has today announced it has launched its real-time Euro payments service, based on the real-time pan European SEPA Instant scheme, which operates 24/7, settles funds in 10 seconds and presents European businesses with significant competitive opportunities. The new service enables customers to build and launch embedded real-time Euro payment propositions via the Modulr API, allowing them to send and receive payments immediately, under their own or Modulr’s regulated status. By embedding real-time payments directly into their software, businesses in the European market will be able to deliver efficient and competitive payment propositions more easily and quickly than previously possible.”

“The digital euro investigation phase is moving forward with an exercise to explore user interface solutions for making payments with digital euro.  The ECB has launched a call for expression of interest for payment service providers, banks and other relevant companies to join an exercise to develop prototype user interfaces. Selected front-end providers will form a pool of providers with which the ECB can collaborate on the development of prototypes that address specific use cases for the payment process.”

“Yet despite this surfeit of choices, many of Europe’s largest banks are backing an effort to build a new European-wide payments network that could replace national payments networks and challenge the dominance of Visa and Mastercard across the continent…Previous efforts to create such a pan-European payments network failed. Most recently, one called the Monnet Project collapsed before it ever got off the ground in 2011. This time, the project is likely to at least make it to launch. That’s because the new European Payments Initiative (EPI for short) is as much about politics as it is about business.”

“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”. 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 European Payments Initiative, a bank-backed joint venture that aims to build a rival to Mastercard and Visa, has put out a Request for Information for ‘qualified technical partners’ to help build its central infrastructure. Backed by 31 major Eurozone banks and acquirers Wordlline and Nets, the EPI is striving to create a unified pan-European payment system, offering a card for consumers and merchants across Europe, a digital wallet and P2P payments.”

“Today, EPI Interim Company, responsible for initiating the implementation of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), is pleased to announce that PKO Bank Polski (“PKO BP”), Poland’s largest bank, and OP Financial Group, the leading Finnish retail bank, are joining EPI as founding shareholders of the recently created company. Furthermore, a group of 12 Spanish credit institutions banks has also formed a consortium and are joining EPI as a collective founding shareholder of the EPI Interim Company.”

“The European Payments Initiative (EPI) has entered its next phase with Worldline and Nets becoming shareholders of the EPI Interim Company. Meanwhile, third-party acquirers have joined the initiative. The EPI was created by 16 European banks in July to provide a unified, innovative pan-European payment solution leveraging Instant Payment/SEPA Instant Credit Transfer, which offers a card for consumers and merchants across Europe, a digital wallet and P2P payments.”

“A glitch in the European Central Bank’s system for settling large-value payments by commercial and central banks has resulted in a drop in deposits worth more than 400 billion euros ($473 billions).    The interruption — which occurred on Friday and lasted more than 11 hours — meant large institutions were unable to move their cash in the usual way. The failure was illustrated in data published Tuesday by the ECB that shows a 416 billion-euro slump in the use of the deposit facility at the central bank. The cash remained in banks’ current accounts, and the balances have since returned to normal. Still, the incident highlights the critical role of the payments infrastructure for the euro area, and the risks that could be posed from a longer outage.”

“The European Central Bank blamed a software defect for a disruption to the region’s main wholesale payment system last week that left banks unable to process transactions and securities trades for almost 11 hours. The outage on Friday paralyzed the ECB’s Target2 payments system, which provides the plumbing that allows money to flow across the bloc’s single market. Owned and operated by the region’s central banks, it processes around €2 trillion in transactions a day, equivalent to $2.35 trillion and to around a fifth of the eurozone’s annual economic output. The “major incident” took place at about 2:40 p.m. on Friday, according to the ECB. After a backup system failed, commercial banks couldn’t process transactions through about 1:20 a.m. the following morning. While European businesses and individuals could continue to make payments, the money wasn’t landing where it should.”