2024-03-15 03:42:22
A new payment system attacks the market leaders Paypal and Apple. The service will be available in Germany from June.
The European Payments Initiative (EPI) plans to establish a Europe-wide payment system. The association of 16 financial service providers – including Deutsche Bank – wants to enable payments by card and smartphone. The initiators plan that consumers will be able to carry out mobile-to-mobile financial transactions via the EPI system from the middle of this year. This could be a challenge for leading payment service providers such as Paypal and Apple.
“We will be making mobile-to-mobile payments widely available in June, with a surcharge in Germany, Belgium and France, and the full program will be available next year,” says Joachim Schmalzl, board member of the German Savings Banks and Giro Association ( DSGV) and Chairman of the EPI Board of Directors.
Successful test already in mid-December
In the future, consumers will be able to make both online purchases and payments at the checkout using the “Wero” digital wallet. The smartphone app was successfully tested at the end of last year: a real-time transfer between a savings bank and the French Banque Populaire.
At the same time, the euro central banks are also working on a digital euro to complement cash. However, it has not yet been decided whether and when this will be introduced. The main aim of this initiative is to strengthen Europe’s financial independence.
“We are for the digital euro if it is done well,” says Schmalzl. But he also emphasizes: “If we want to be successful in Europe with a common payment system, then we have to […] “We need to combine our strengths and not split them up.” The savings banks also see the danger that the European Central Bank (ECB) will spend a lot of effort setting up its own offering, the added value of which for consumers is questionable.