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EU Payment Providers Create a Network to Reduce Reliance on US Tech

ENP is intended to connect existing European payment services for cross-border payments. Its launch timing and ability to reduce dependence on non-European providers remain uncertain.
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Five European payment groups have created the European Network for Payments (ENP), a Madrid-based joint entity meant to connect the services people already use—not launch a replacement wallet. Its first planned feature is cross-border person-to-person payments, with online and in-store payments intended for later phases. The project is designed to strengthen European control over payments, but it has not yet demonstrated that it can eliminate reliance on US or other non-European technology providers.

What is the European Network for Payments?

Announced on 30 September 2026, ENP is a shared interoperability layer for existing European payment services. Its five founding partners say they will own the entity in equal shares. The aim is to let customers pay across borders through the services they already know, while those services retain their own brands and user experiences. The partners say the common technical and operational layer will use European standards, including instant account-to-account (A2A) payments. The partners’ announcement describes a joint infrastructure effort, not a new consumer app.

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In practical terms, ENP is intended to help participating services interoperate: a payment started in one service could reach a user of another participating service in a different country. The final technical rules and operating details have not been published in the material available as of 5 October 2026.

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Which payment services are involved?

The founding partners are Bancomat in Italy, Bizum in Spain, EPI/Wero, SIBS-MB WAY in Portugal, and Vipps MobilePay in the Nordic countries. Cinco Días identifies the 13 markets covered by their combined solutions as Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Its report says the network is expected to begin with person-to-person transfers.

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The founding partners report that their services together reach approximately 130 million users across 13 countries and cover more than 70% of the population of the EU and Norway. These are partner-reported figures for the combined services, not a count of ENP users, active users of a shared service, or completed cross-border payments. The announcement does not provide a separate ENP adoption figure.

How is ENP different from Wero?

Wero is a payment service operated by the European Payments Initiative (EPI); ENP is the entity intended to connect Wero with the other participating services. They are related, but not interchangeable names. Wero’s own user totals should not be added to ENP’s partner-reported combined reach or treated as ENP customers.

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EPI reported 53 million Wero users on 27 April 2026. In a separate September 2025 update, it reported more than 43.5 million registered Wero users and more than €7.5 billion transferred in the service’s first year. Those are historical, differently dated Wero figures—not measurements of ENP. EPI’s updates also describe Wero as using European SEPA real-time payment infrastructure, European scheme rules and European governance.

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When will cross-border payments launch?

The partners say implementation is being prepared and describe a phased rollout. Cross-border person-to-person transfers are planned first; e-commerce and point-of-sale payments are intended to follow. The primary announcement gives no precise public go-live date for any phase. Cinco Días reported an expectation that a pan-European solution would operate during 2027, starting with person-to-person transfers. That is a reported expectation, not a guaranteed launch date or confirmation that every service and market will be available at once.

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Will this reduce reliance on US technology?

Reducing dependence on non-European providers is part of the broader goal, but ENP’s creation does not prove that such dependence has ended. EPI says Wero relies on providers from outside Europe in some areas and that it is working to reduce that dependency. The ENP announcement does not identify every supplier or technical component used by the participating services, so it cannot establish that ENP has removed US providers—or international card networks such as Visa and Mastercard—from payment processing.

The initiative builds on services and infrastructure that already exist rather than replacing them with a single new app. Cinco Días offers an explanatory example in which a customer pays through a home-country service and a shared node helps route the transaction across borders. That example is not a complete published technical specification, and the announced plan does not yet establish fees, performance, fraud outcomes or merchant acceptance.

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How does the initiative fit with European payments policy?

The European Central Bank’s March 2026 payments strategy says pan-European retail payment solutions based on instant payments could strengthen resilience. It recognizes Wero’s progress and says it will follow EPI and European Payments Alliance work on cross-border payments. The ECB’s criteria for market-led European solutions include pan-European reach and customer experience; convenience and low cost; safety and efficiency; European brand and governance; and global acceptance in the long term. The strategy frames these as objectives for assessing solutions, not measured ENP results.

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ENP is a private-sector initiative, not an ECB-operated service. It is also distinct from the public digital euro project: the ECB describes private European payment schemes and a digital euro as potentially complementary parts of a more resilient payments market. The ECB’s strategy does not amount to an endorsement of every ENP feature.

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What remains unknown?

Because ENP is newly established, the announcement sets out an intention and rollout direction rather than a finished service. The following details are not established in the public information cited here:

  • Exact launch dates by country, service or payment phase.
  • Final technical rules, governance procedures and participating-service onboarding.
  • Consumer or merchant fees, transaction limits and settlement arrangements.
  • Operational performance, fraud rates, dispute handling and actual cross-border usage.
  • Which providers and systems will supply each technical component.

Those details will determine how much practical choice, resilience and independence the network delivers. The ECB’s criteria offer a useful way to evaluate the eventual service, but they are not evidence that ENP already meets them.

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