Five European payment groups have formed the European Network for Payments (ENP), a Madrid-based entity intended to connect services such as Bizum, Wero and MB WAY. Its first planned use is cross-border person-to-person transfers, followed by online and in-store payments. The aim is to make existing European services work across borders—not to launch one replacement wallet or to prove that reliance on US technology has ended.
What is the European Network for Payments?
Announced on 30 September 2026, ENP is a joint entity created by Bancomat, Bizum, EPI/Wero, SIBS-MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay. The five founding partners say they will own it in equal shares. It is intended to manage and scale a shared interoperability layer so participating payment services can connect across borders while retaining their own brands and customer experiences. The partners’ announcement and their description of the initiative set out that aim.
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In practical terms, the proposal is to let people continue using the payment service they already have, while a common technical and operational layer helps route payments between participating markets. The partners say this layer will use European standards, including instant account-to-account (A2A) payments. It is not a new consumer wallet replacing Bizum, MB WAY, Vipps MobilePay, Bancomat or Wero.
Which payment services and countries are involved?
The founding groups represent services in Italy, Spain, Portugal, the Nordic countries and markets where EPI’s Wero operates. The partners report that their existing services together reach approximately 130 million users across 13 countries, covering more than 70% of the population of the EU and Norway. These are partner-reported figures for the combined services, not ENP registrations, active users of a shared product or completed cross-border payments. The founding partners’ announcement gives the figures.
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Cinco Días lists the 13 markets as Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. This describes the markets represented in the reported combined reach; it does not establish that ENP payments are already available in each country. Cinco Días’ report provides the market list.
How will cross-border payments work, and when?
Planned rollout
The partners plan to introduce cross-border person-to-person transfers first, then add e-commerce and point-of-sale payments in later phases. Their announcement says technical implementation is being prepared but gives no precise public go-live date for each phase. The rollout announcement describes the sequence.
Cinco Días reported an expectation that a pan-European solution would operate during 2027, starting with person-to-person transfers and adding merchant payments later. That is a reported expectation, not a guaranteed launch date; the primary announcement confirms a phased plan rather than a dated launch commitment. The newspaper’s report gives that expectation.
What a payment might look like
Cinco Días illustrates the concept with a person paying across a border through their home service, while a receiving-market service checks identity through a common node and routes the payment to the payer’s home bank. This is an explanatory example, not a complete technical specification. ENP has not published all the routing, identity-verification or settlement details. Cinco Días’ account describes the example.
Is Wero the same as ENP?
No. Wero is a payment service operated by the European Payments Initiative (EPI); ENP is the shared interoperability entity intended to connect Wero with the other participating services. The distinction matters: figures for Wero are not figures for ENP.
EPI reported 53 million Wero users on 27 April 2026. Separately, its September 2025 update reported more than 43.5 million registered Wero users and more than €7.5 billion transferred in Wero’s first year. Those figures refer to Wero at their stated dates, not to ENP or its eventual cross-border activity. EPI’s April 2026 update and its September 2025 update provide the figures.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Will ENP end reliance on US technology or replace Visa and Mastercard?
The initiative is intended to strengthen European payment autonomy, but the announcement does not establish that ENP or its members have eliminated dependence on US or other non-European technology providers. It also does not say ENP will replace Visa or Mastercard. The shared layer is described as connecting participating payment services; the announcement does not identify every supplier, processing component, cloud provider or card-network relationship involved.
EPI says Wero uses European SEPA real-time payment infrastructure, European scheme rules and European governance. In the same statement, it acknowledges that Wero still relies on providers from outside Europe in some areas and says it is working to reduce that dependency. That supports a distinction between European governance and infrastructure choices on one hand, and complete supplier independence on the other. EPI’s statement on Wero’s infrastructure and dependencies explains its position.
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ENP is a private initiative, not a service operated by the European Central Bank (ECB). In its March 2026 payments strategy, the Eurosystem said pan-European retail payment solutions based on instant payments could improve resilience, recognized Wero’s progress and said it would follow EPI and European Payments Alliance work on cross-border payments. The ECB’s stated criteria for market-led European solutions include pan-European reach and customer experience; convenience and low cost; safety and efficiency; European branding and governance; and, in the long run, global acceptance. The Eurosystem strategy and the ECB’s criteria provide the policy context.
Those policy goals are not evidence that ENP has already met them or that the ECB has endorsed every feature. The ECB frames private European payment schemes and the public digital euro project as potentially complementary parts of a more resilient payments market; they are distinct initiatives. The strategy sets out that relationship.
What remains unknown?
Because ENP has only recently been established, the announcement does not settle important practical questions about how the service will operate for consumers and merchants. The available information does not establish:
- Exact launch dates or the date each service and country will become available.
- Final technical rules, routing arrangements or detailed governance procedures.
- Fees for consumers or merchants.
- Fraud rates, technical performance or operational results.
- Whether every user of a participating service will be able to make or receive cross-border payments at launch.
Until those details are published and the phases go live, the reported reach describes the partners’ current services—not a proven network of users making interoperable payments.
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