Huw Jones

LONDON, (Reuters) – A pan-European payment network backed 22 banks in order to compete against the U.S. duo Mastercard and Visa (NYSE 🙂 made a Tuesday appeal for public money. It claimed that its private backers weren’t prepared to pay all of it.

Last year, the European Payments Initiative was established. It aims to bring more banks and payment providers on board before December. The European Payments Initiative will then finalise plans for rolling out instant and card payments.

Martina Weimert, EPI chief executive, stated that public funding was a nice idea at an event organized by the European Payments Institutions Federation. Let’s be clear, it will require a huge investment. It’s expensive.”

While retailers say that they cannot afford it, EPI shareholders and banks “can hold only so much”, Weimert explained, not giving any details.

Deutsche Bank UniCredit, UniCredit and BNP Paribas are some of the banks backing this venture.

European Union wants to be able to make strategic decisions in the financial sector. For example, it has reduced reliance on Visa and Mastercard for trans-border card payments. The extent to which this could extend to EPI financial backing is unclear.

Weimert stated that EPI is now in the “critical phase” for decision-making over the coming weeks.

The new system will replace the plethora national systems that have been in place for a while. She stated that peer-to–peer transactions, which are based upon instant payments and then followed by electronic commerce, would be available in 2022.

This is a significant shift, so it will take time. Weimert stated that any person who claims it’s easy to do and can get it done quickly is wrong.