Today the European Payments Initiative (EPI), the bank-backed project for developing a payment wallet, said it plans to acquire Belgian mobile payment app Payconiq founded by ING and Dutch payment platform iDEAL. Four additional banks have joined the EPI, including DZ Bank, Belfius, ABN Amro and Rabobank. We will show how the digital euro could be part of the reason for the rejuvenation of the EPI.
As background, the EPI originally had 31 bank members and two acquirers and planned to build a European card network to replace Visa and Mastercard. It shelved the card plan a year ago and refocused on a digital wallet and payments. Twenty banks dropped out.
Today’s announcement focuses on bank-based payments, which are at the heart of both companies. iDeal allows Dutch online shoppers to pay directly from their bank accounts. iDeal was used for 1.2 billion payments last year and for 70% of all e-commerce transactions in the Netherlands.
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