European financial consortium says it will launch unified payments pilot

Wallet developer EPI Company has announced a pilot for its unified, instant-to-account payment software and service, the acquisition of two companies and the addition of four so-called shareholders.

The troubled company is refocusing its market plans after finances got tight and many of its shareholders left last year over plans that they felt were too broad, The Paypers reports. It is now focusing on wallet and digital payment products based on the pan-European SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme.

G+D is a supporter, at least of the original vision for the EPI.

EPI wants to replace national European payment schemes such as France’s Carte Bancaire and Germany’s Girocard.

(The firm is operated by a group of shareholders originally known as the European Payments Initiative. That group now acts as a holding company of sorts, governing what EPI does.)

Executives say their P2P payment wallet will be piloted in France and Germany before 2024. Belgium will France and Germany in fielding the wallet early next year. Those three nations, they say, represent at least half of non-cash payments made in Europe.

The wallet is being designed to support single transactions, subscriptions, staggered payments, delivery payments and bookings. It will begin with person-to-person features and move on to include person-to-professional payments and then online purchases and point-of-sale payments

EPI is also planning the acquisition of European payments vendors Currence iDEAL and PQI. According to EPI, PQI “serves iDEAL in the Netherlands.” No financial details have been revealed, and the deal awaits regulatory approval.

“We welcome this agreement with Currence iDEAL and PQI,” says the EPI CEO Martina Weimert. “EPI will thus take advantage of the solid operational experience, know-how and knowledge of the local market of these two companies to build an innovative solution based on a new payment scheme and a new unified instant payment platform for Europe.”

Finally, EPI has added four shareholders: Belfius and D. Bank, which began working with the firm in late 2022, and ABN Amro and Rabobank, which have joined ING (one of EPI’s founding shareholders).

Stakeholders include BFCM, BNP Paribas, BPCE, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, DSGV, KBC, La Banque Postale, Nexi, Société Générale and Worldline.

The news comes at a moment of substantial change in the European payment landscape. The European Credit Sector Associations recently asked the European Union Parliament and Council to reconsider the inclusion of payments in the upcoming European Digital Identity (eIDAS2) project.

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  EPI Company  |  EU  |  payments  |  pilot project