Europe has decided to launch a truly European payment system to reduce dependence on American giants Visa and MasterCard. European Union policymakers and central bankers have long thought about a "home grown" rival to take the shine off Mastercard and Visa. At the end of the summer, they announced the launch of the European Payments Initiative, EPI. Funny enough, originally, the project was called Pan-European Payment System Initiative or PEPSI.
More than 20 European banks have teamed up to be working on EPI. France and Germany are considered the tacit leaders of the project. "It is aimed at strengthening Europe, at making it more independent and robust. We will do it collectively, by pooling our resources," Thierry Laborde, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at French bank BNP Paribas, pointed out. With the creation of a Pan-European payment system, Europe will be able to weaken the dominance of the American payment providers such as Visa and MasterCard, which have been monopolists since the end of the last century. Last year alone, 2.2 billion Visa cards and 1.9 billion MasterCard cards were used worldwide. Currently, only China's UnionPay can compete with them. It has issued more than 5 billion cards but they are used largely in China and neighboring Asian countries. In 2016, the total card volume of Visa and MasterCard in Europe came in at 86% and last year it was 90%. Most of the European payment systems were unable to compete with Visa and MasterCard due to the lack of support in the interlinking and interoperability of national card schemes.
This time, the situation may change. More than 20 banks from five countries have already signed up for the project, including BBVA and Santander, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, Societe Generale, La Banque Postale and BPCE, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, DZ Bank and Sparkasse, KBC, Unicredit, ING and others.
