Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

Visa and Mastercard, the undisputed masters of payments in Europe, are now facing a coordinated offensive from five national champions. The European banking landscape is preparing for a seismic shift. Major players such as Bizum in Spain, Bancomat in Italy, MB WAY in Portugal, and Vipps MobilePay in the Nordic countries are officially joining forces with the French initiative, Wero.

Visa 和 Mastercard 作为欧洲支付领域无可争议的霸主，如今正面临来自五大国家级支付巨头的协同攻势。欧洲银行业格局即将迎来一场地震。西班牙的 Bizum、意大利的 Bancomat、葡萄牙的 MB WAY 以及北欧的 Vipps MobilePay 等主要支付平台，已正式与法国的 Wero 项目达成联盟。

This strike force is far from symbolic, as it relies on a solid base of 130 million already active users. By connecting these national ecosystems, Europe is no longer just criticizing the dominance of Visa and Mastercard; it is building an alternative capable of processing billions of annual transactions without a single piece of data passing through U.S. servers.

这股力量绝非象征意义，因为它拥有 1.3 亿活跃用户的坚实基础。通过连接这些国家级生态系统，欧洲不再仅仅是批评 Visa 和 Mastercard 的垄断地位，而是在构建一个能够处理每年数十亿笔交易的替代方案，且无需让任何数据流经美国服务器。

Total interoperability as the key to digital freedom Europe has the infrastructure, scale, and vision necessary to offer a sovereign, robust, and reliable European alternative in the payments sector. The project relies on the creation of a central interoperability hub, managed by a joint entity that the partners will establish in the first half of 2026. This technical platform will allow the different systems to communicate with each other without users having to change their habits. A French user of Wero will thus be able to transfer money to a Spanish friend on Bizum with the same simplicity as a domestic payment.

全面互操作性是数字自由的关键 欧洲拥有在支付领域提供主权、稳健且可靠的欧洲替代方案所需的基础设施、规模和愿景。该项目依赖于建立一个中央互操作性枢纽，由合作伙伴在 2026 年上半年共同成立的实体进行管理。这一技术平台将使不同的系统能够相互通信，而用户无需改变使用习惯。例如，使用 Wero 的法国用户可以像进行国内转账一样，轻松地向使用 Bizum 的西班牙朋友转账。

An ambitious deployment schedule toward complete autonomy The deployment will take place gradually. Person-to-person transfers will be available starting in 2026 across all thirteen covered countries—from Andorra to Sweden. Online and in-store payments will follow in 2027. Eventually, this coalition will cover 72% of the population of the European Union and Norway. European payment sovereignty is not a vision, but a reality in the making.

迈向完全自主的雄心勃勃的部署计划 部署工作将分阶段进行。从 2026 年起，所有 13 个覆盖国家（从安道尔到瑞典）都将开通个人对个人（P2P）转账功能。在线支付和店内支付将于 2027 年跟进。最终，该联盟将覆盖欧盟和挪威 72% 的人口。欧洲的支付主权不再是一个愿景，而是一个正在成为现实的过程。

The EuroPA alliance, which has already been connecting Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Andorra since March 2025, serves as a prototype. Six million euros have passed through it in one year, without any specific promotional campaign. This is an encouraging signal for this ambition of European autonomy in a sector long dominated by extra-continental giants—a concern that Christine Lagarde had already emphasized in April 2025.

自 2025 年 3 月起连接西班牙、葡萄牙、意大利和安道尔的 EuroPA 联盟，目前已成为该项目的原型。在没有任何特别促销活动的情况下，该系统在一年内处理了 600 万欧元的交易。对于这个长期被非欧洲巨头垄断的行业而言，这无疑是一个令人鼓舞的信号——克里斯蒂娜·拉加德（Christine Lagarde）早在 2025 年 4 月就曾强调过这一担忧。