Europe must “urgently” reduce its reliance on U.S. payment processing companies such as Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA), the head of the European Payments Initiative told the Financial Times.
“We are highly dependent on international [payment] solutions,” said Martina Weimert, CEO of EPI, an alliance of 16 European banks and financial services companies.
According to the European Central Bank, Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA) accounted for almost two-thirds of card transactions in the Eurozone in 2022.
“We have nice national assets like domestic [payment] card schemes… but we don’t have anything cross-border,” Weimert said. “If we say independence is so crucial and we all know it’s a timing issue… we need action urgently.”
Weimert’s comments come as European officials are increasingly concerned that U.S. payment companies’ dominance could be weaponized if there’s a serious breakdown in diplomatic ties.
The EPI launched Wero in 2024 as a European alternative to U.S. payment solutions. Wero, which has more than 43.5M registered users, is live in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Last week, the EPI and other European payment providers signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at enabling seamless cross-border payments across Europe by 2027.
As for the digital euro, which the ECB is preparing to issue by 2029, Weimart said it could arrive too late. “The problem with the digital euro is it will come in a couple of years, maybe after the mandate of Donald Trump. So I think we are a little bit out of time.”