Five European payment networks launch Madrid based ENP to challenge Visa and Mastercard

For decades, Europe's retail payment landscape has been shaped by two American companies. Visa and Mastercard together handle roughly 90 percent of global card transactions outside China, and US based payment rails process more than 60 percent of card transactions inside Europe. Thirteen of the 21 eurozone member states do not operate a domestic card network of their own and lean entirely on international schemes. That reliance has frustrated European policymakers, banks and technology companies for years.

On September 30, 2026, five of the continent's largest national payment groups moved to change that. Italy's Bancomat, Spain's Bizum, the EPI Company behind the Wero wallet, Portugal's SIBS-MB WAY and Scandinavia's Vipps MobilePay announced the creation of the European Network for Payments (ENP), a Madrid based joint venture designed to interconnect their domestic systems so that users of one app can pay users of another across borders. Reuters reported on September 30 that the groups serve about 130 million users across 13 European countries, covering more than 70 percent of the combined population of the European Union and Norway.

The announcement was made simultaneously in Madrid, Brussels, Lisbon, Oslo and Rome, according to The Deep Dive, which reported on October 2 that the five partners will hold equal shares in the new entity and will jointly handle technical coordination from the Spanish capital. Each founder brings a distinct footprint: Bancomat dominates Italy, Bizum is the default mobile payment method in Spain, Wero operates in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, MB WAY leads in Portugal, and Vipps MobilePay covers Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

The project is not a single app and not a new card scheme. It is an interoperability layer, a common technical and operational foundation built on European standards and instant account to account payments. PaymentsJournal reported on October 1 that a customer could one day use Spain's Bizum to pay a merchant using Portugal's MB WAY, without either side switching services. Fragmentation has long been the biggest hurdle for European payment schemes, said Martina Weimert, chief executive of the European Payments Initiative, in remarks carried by Reuters.

Key Facts

The ENP will be headquartered in Madrid and structured as a joint venture with equal shares among the five founding networks, according to The Deep Dive. Its core asset is a shared interoperability hub that connects existing national systems rather than replacing them. Reuters reported on September 30 that the network will run on a common technical and operational layer based on European standards and instant account to account payments, and that other European payment schemes could join in the future.

The scale of the founding members is substantial. Bancomat processes 2.7 billion transactions worth about 200 billion euros a year. Bizum counts 32 million users and 120,000 online retailers. MB WAY processes more than 70 million transactions a month. Vipps MobilePay covers roughly 400,000 businesses across the Nordic region. Together the five reach around 130 million users across 13 countries, more than 70 percent of the combined EU and Norway population. Wanted in Rome reported on October 1 that Visa and Mastercard together handle roughly 90 percent of global card transactions outside China, a figure it attributed to Il Sole 24 Ore.

The rollout will be phased. The first stage covers cross-border person to person payments, allowing individuals to send money across national borders using their existing apps. The second stage extends the network to e-commerce, and the third to point of sale transactions in shops. Reuters reported on September 30 that the companies did not set dates for the later stages, while Wanted in Rome reported on October 1 that interconnected cross-border payments are expected to go live starting in 2027.

The ENP did not emerge from nothing. Bizum, Bancomat and MB WAY linked their networks in March 2025, enabling mobile transfers among more than 50 million people across Spain, Italy, Portugal and Andorra. In February 2026, the European Payments Initiative and EuroPA Alliance members signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at building a pan-European network by 2027. PaymentsJournal reported on October 1 that the ENP grew out of that memorandum.

Leadership is already taking shape. Fernando Rodriguez, deputy general manager for international expansion at Bizum, said ENP had already selected a new chief executive and was planning to recruit staff. Rodriguez described the entity as a sovereign, efficient and innovative payments system that serves citizens. Fabrizio Burlando, chief executive of Bancomat, called the creation of the interoperability entity a concrete step toward a more integrated and autonomous European payments system, reinforcing the central role of European banks and infrastructure.

Analysis

The bigger picture here is that Europe is no longer merely regulating American payment giants. It is attempting to build a genuine rival. The ENP is best understood as a defensive consolidation play: five domestic champions, each strong at home and limited abroad, pooling their user bases to create something none of them could build alone. The model is deliberately incremental. Rather than asking 130 million people to download a new app, the ENP asks them to keep using the apps they already have while the plumbing underneath becomes cross-border.

What this really means is that the hardest work lies ahead, and the timeline is long. Riley, an analyst cited by PaymentsJournal, said there is likely a decade before something is viable in the EU market. That assessment is sobering. Interoperability between five systems with different technical standards, fraud rules, dispute procedures and regulatory regimes is a multi-year engineering and governance exercise. The March 2025 linkage among three of the five founders took months to negotiate and covered only person to person transfers among four countries.

The competitive gap is also stark. Visa and Mastercard process roughly 90 percent of global card transactions outside China, and more than 60 percent of European card transactions still run through US based rails. Thirteen of the 21 eurozone member states have no domestic card network, which means the ENP starts with a minority of European payment volume even if it starts with a majority of European mobile payment users. Account to account instant payments are growing quickly, but card rails remain deeply embedded in merchant acceptance, consumer habit and bank economics.

Even so, the institutional tailwinds are real. The European Central Bank plans a digital euro, essentially an online wallet guaranteed by the ECB but operated by private companies including banks, with a rollout projected by 2029. Reuters reported on September 30 that the digital euro could eventually complement the ENP project. Wanted in Rome reported on October 1 that ENP builds directly on the February 2026 memorandum of understanding between the European Payments Initiative and the EuroPA Alliance. If the digital euro and the ENP evolve in parallel, Europe could end up with a public backstop and a private interoperability layer, a combination no single national scheme could deliver on its own.

Why It Matters

The ENP matters because payments are infrastructure, and infrastructure shapes sovereignty. Europe's dependence on two US companies for everyday transactions has been a recurring concern for regulators, central bankers and competition authorities. The ENP does not eliminate that dependence, but it creates an alternative path. For the roughly 130 million users across 13 countries, the practical benefit could be simpler and cheaper cross-border transfers, especially for people who work, shop or own property across borders.

It also matters for the merchants and banks behind the apps. Vipps MobilePay alone covers roughly 400,000 businesses, and Bizum works with 120,000 online retailers. If the ENP makes cross-border account to account payments as easy as domestic ones, those merchants gain a lower cost alternative to card acceptance, particularly for online sales where card fees are most visible. Banks, meanwhile, would retain a central role in a payments system built on European standards rather than one designed elsewhere.

The bigger strategic question is whether Europe can convert regulatory ambition into commercial adoption. The ENP has the users, the brands and the political support. What it does not yet have is a proven cross-border product at scale, a fully built leadership team, or a published timetable for the e-commerce and point of sale phases that would actually challenge card rails. The person to person phase is a useful first step, but it is also the least commercially valuable.

Next Up

The immediate next steps are organisational and technical. ENP has selected a new chief executive and plans to recruit staff, according to Fernando Rodriguez of Bizum. The joint venture will build out its Madrid headquarters and begin stitching the five national systems into a single interoperability hub. Cross-border person to person payments are expected to go live starting in 2027, with e-commerce and point of sale phases to follow, though no dates have been announced for those later stages.

Beyond the founding five, the ENP has said other European payment schemes could join in the future. That opens the door to additional national networks and potentially to the digital euro infrastructure planned by the European Central Bank by 2029. Whether the ENP becomes the connective tissue of a genuinely European payments ecosystem, or remains a promising but slow moving alliance, will depend on how quickly the first cross-border payments actually reach ordinary users.