On September 30, 2026, five European payment companies and organizations announced the creation of a joint company, the "European Network for Payments (ENP)," to interconnect existing national payment apps across borders. The Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Nordic payment services are joined by the European Payments Initiative (EPI), which operates Wero, and the five parties will hold equal stakes.
The goal is to let users send money to people in other countries, or pay in stores, using the apps they already use. The entity that will run this effort across Europe is now in place. But reducing reliance on international card payments will take more than technically connecting the services: the number of merchants and regions where they can actually be used will also have to grow.
Using your usual payment app abroad, unchanged
The five parties that joined the founding of ENP, and the payment services each provides, are as follows.
| Founding partner | Payment service |
|---|---|
| Bancomat (Italy) | Bancomat |
| Bizum (Spain) | Bizum |
| EPI | Wero |
| SIBS (Portugal) | MB WAY |
| Vipps MobilePay (Nordics) | Vipps MobilePay |
According to the ENP announcement, the company will be headquartered in Madrid. The joint company will coordinate the technical and operational aspects of each service and expand supported features and participating businesses. The idea is to let services that were previously separated by region use instant payments that move money between bank accounts.
This is not a scheme that asks users to switch to a new shared app. In Vipps MobilePay's explanation, each service keeps its own brand and user experience while connecting through a common technical and operational infrastructure.
If it works as envisioned, a Nordic user traveling abroad could, for example, pay at a store that supports another participating service, using the app they normally use. Not having to learn a new service or install a new app is an advantage in lowering the barrier to adoption.
That said, users keeping the same app does not make the back end simple. Connecting services across countries, adding new features and expanding participating businesses all require ongoing coordination. Giving that role to a joint company owned by the five parties is the major step forward here.
Detailed technical specifications for payments and clearing have not yet been published, so which processes ENP will handle directly, and how much will remain with the existing services, will have to wait for implementation.
"130 million users" and "over 70% of the population" are different figures
The announcement says the participating services have a combined user base of about 130 million, and that the initial target region spans 13 countries. However, the 130 million is neither the number of people newly registered with ENP nor the number who have made cross-border payments through it.
The announcement also doesn't make clear how overlapping users across services were counted, or over what period users were counted.
Another large figure presented is the claim that the network will cover more than 70% of the population of the EU and Norway. The February memorandum says the combined population of the 13 target countries equals about 72% of the EU and Norway as a whole. The countries include Italy, Spain, Germany and France, as well as the Nordic countries and Andorra.
This roughly 72% therefore cannot be read as "the share of the population able to use ENP" or as "the penetration rate of payment apps."
| Figure | What it represents | What can be read from it |
|---|---|---|
| About 130 million people | Existing users of the ENP participating services | The user base that could become eligible for interconnection. Not ENP usage figures |
| 13 countries, over 70% of population | Share of the EU and Norway population accounted for by the initial target countries | The breadth of the target region. Not a usage rate or payment market share |
| About 61% | Share of euro area card transactions in 2022 accounted for by international card schemes | Dependence on international networks in card payments. Not a share of all retail payments in 2026 |
The final figure, about 61%, comes from a report the European Central Bank (ECB) published in February 2025. It covers card transactions in the euro area in 2022 and aggregates all international card networks together.
Treating this number as the combined total of just Visa and Mastercard, or describing it as 61% of all retail payments including cash and bank transfers, would change its meaning.
The same ECB report explains that, as of 2024, 13 euro area countries had no domestic card scheme and relied entirely on international card networks. These 13 countries are a separate tally from the 13 countries ENP targets.
Europe has payment services widely used within individual countries, but their convenience sometimes can't be carried across borders. ENP aims to resolve this kind of national fragmentation.
From the April pilot to the September joint company
The February agreement, the April cross-border QR payment pilot and the September creation of the joint company are at different stages. None of them means that cross-border payments for general consumers have fully launched.
| Announcement date | Stage reached | Scope and remaining steps |
|---|---|---|
| February 2, 2026 | The five parties signed a memorandum toward interconnection | Set targets of rolling out person-to-person transfers in 2026 and online and in-store payments in 2027 |
| April 16, 2026 | Bancomat, EPI and SIBS-MB WAY demonstrated cross-border QR in-store payments | Demonstrated that payments to other services' merchants were possible among three services. Not the same as general availability across all five services |
| September 30, 2026 | The five parties announced the creation of the joint company ENP | Policy of advancing technical implementation and expanding in stages from person-to-person transfers to online and in-store payments |
The April pilot confirmed the whole flow of scanning a store's QR code and paying across a border from the app of a different participating service. Showing that different services can actually be connected, not merely planned, is meaningful.
On the other hand, the published materials include no measured results such as transaction counts or processing speeds, and no list of stores that ordinary users can actually use. A successful pilot is not the same as being ready to offer a broad commercial service.
The timeline also calls for caution. The February document set out a plan to establish the central organization running the shared hub in the first half of 2026, but ENP's creation was announced on September 30.
The published materials alone don't reveal the actual incorporation date or how the delay arose. The September announcement describes preparations for technical implementation and a phased rollout, but does not restate specific service launch dates for the 2026 and 2027 targets set in February.
Wider instant transfers don't guarantee you can pay in stores
ENP may also benefit from the EU rules promoting instant bank transfers.
Under the EU instant payments regulation, eligible payment service providers in the euro area were required to be able to receive instant euro payments from January 2025 and to send them from October 9 of the same year. Transfers must be possible around the clock, and fees may not exceed those for regular transfers. A system to verify the recipient's name against account details must also be provided free of charge.
Such rules make instant transfers between banks easier to use, but banks supporting instant transfers is a separate matter from stores accepting payments through a particular payment app.
Stores' payment terminals and online shop checkout screens also need to be adapted. And it cannot be concluded from the rule that fees can't exceed those of regular transfers that merchant payments through ENP will be free. Nor can the same deadlines and conditions simply be applied to countries outside the euro area.
Wero's in-store rollout illustrates the difference. In EPI's September 16 announcement, it said it would support QR payments using Payworld terminals in Belgium and introduce them to stores in stages.
The plan to expand store support in earnest in France and Germany comes in 2027 or later. The contactless payment also presented at the same time was a demonstration in a test environment, and the announcement states explicitly that it is not the start of a commercial service.
Even if the stores where Wero alone can be used increase, that does not by itself mean all five services participating in ENP can be used at the same stores across borders.
Who bears the costs will also affect adoption. In an interview with Reuters, EPI CEO Martina Weimert explained that shareholders will cover initial operating costs, and that once the network has grown to sufficient scale, ENP itself plans to earn fee revenue.
For merchants deciding whether to adopt it, actual fees and operating conditions will matter as much as the number of services they can connect to. The announcement does not reveal common merchant fees, exchange-rate terms for payments across different currencies, or buyer protection mechanisms.
A private payment network advancing alongside the digital euro
In European payments, there is also the digital euro that the ECB is preparing. But ENP and the digital euro play different roles.
ENP is a mechanism that connects existing private payment services to broaden the range in which bank-account-to-bank-account transfers can be used. The digital euro, by contrast, is an effort to design a new public digital currency issued by the central bank.
In the ECB's explanation, one goal is for the common standards used for the digital euro to expand what private payment services can support.
However, this does not mean a formal integration of ENP and the digital euro has been decided. The ECB's envisioned first issuance date is 2029, but that assumes the necessary legal framework is in place by the end of 2026. Whether to actually issue the digital euro will also be decided after the legal framework is in place, so provision in 2029 is not guaranteed.
To judge ENP's progress, it is necessary to look not only at the joint company's creation but at which apps in which countries can actually pay which recipients or stores.
Once the fees merchants bear and the conditions for cross-border use become clear, it will also be possible to compare how usable it is as an alternative to international cards.
If those conditions are met, European payment apps that have grown popular in individual countries could move beyond being services convenient only domestically and become payment methods that can be used as usual while traveling and when shopping across borders.