ECB President Christine Lagarde has called for Europe to break its dependence on American payment infrastructure, warning that every card transaction sends European consumer data to the United States. A coalition of 16 banks thinks it has the answer.
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What’s happening? ECB President Christine Lagarde told Irish radio that Europe needs its own digital payment system “urgently,” warning that virtually all European card and mobile payments currently run through non-European infrastructure controlled by Visa, Mastercard, PayPal or Alipay. Days later, on 2 February, the European Payments Initiative (EPI) and the EuroPA Alliance signed a landmark agreement to build a pan-European interoperable payment network covering 130 million users across 13 countries. The system, built around the digital wallet Wero, aims to let Europeans pay and transfer money across borders without touching a single American network.