Two of Europe’s leading mobile payments groups have signed a collaboration deal that aims to make it possible for European citizens to use their preferred domestic payment brand to make and receive payments both online and in-store anywhere in Europe.

The two parties to the deal are EPI, the European Payments Initiative, and the European Payments Alliance (EuroPA).

EPI is the bank-led organisation responsible for building Wero, a unified mobile payments service for Europe.

The EuroPA, meanwhile, was founded by three domestic mobile payment service providers with a vision “to contribute to the development of a sovereign and robust pan-European payments market through interoperability among existing payment solutions, leveraging SEPA instant payment standards and the most widely adopted mobile payment solutions in various European countries.”

Interoperability

Interoperability for users of EuroPA’s three founding services — Bancomat, Bizum, and MB WAY/ SIBS — has been in place since March 2025, enabling “over 50m users in Andorra, Italy, Portugal and Spain (customers of 186 financial institutions operating across the continent) to send and receive money instantly using their preferred payment solutions.”

The three founders were recently joined by Blik (Poland), IRIS (Greece), and Vipps MobilePay (Nordic countries) “and will gradually be integrated into operations”.

“This confirms EuroPA’s growth trajectory, reaching over 100m users in 10 European countries through fully operational infrastructures and trusted brands,” the alliance says.

The new agreement between EPI and EuroPA “aims at enabling European citizens to send and receive payments seamlessly across the continent, for the benefit of both consumers and merchants,” the partners say.

“The aim is to cover all use cases (person-to-person and commercial payments both online and in-store) across the markets of the participating solutions.” 

“The collaboration between EuroPA and EPI is driven by a shared interest in exploring a joint solution that leverages the strong adoption and existing capabilities of each participant through enhanced interconnectivity.

“This agreement will initially cover 15 European countries, collectively representing over 382 million inhabitants (84% of the European Union population and Norway), enabling them to continue using their preferred digital payment solutions both locally and across Europe, and provide an approach for markets with no solution so far.

“Interconnecting existing solutions is a rapid path forward to European sovereignty and independence — a goal shared by both the European Commission and Eurosystem. This approach, grounded in Europe’s best-in-class solutions and diversity, will continue to drive innovation, convenience, and efficiency for both consumers and merchants.”

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