European Union 🇪🇺: “Key Players in the EU Payments Market — 2026”

European Union 🇪🇺: “Key Players in the EU Payments Market — 2026”

The European Payments Association (PA EU), together with Deloitte and The Paypers, published a report titled “Key Players in the EU Payments Market — 2026.” The document provides a detailed analysis of how the adoption of instant payments, the implementation of PSD3, and the development of the digital euro may affect payment service providers in the EU in the near future.

1️⃣ 2025 results: instant payments became core infrastructure. Since October, EU providers have been required to process them around the clock, with support for payer verification.

2️⃣ Despite all efforts toward integration, Europe's payments landscape remains fragmented. Cross-border payments are routed through different national infrastructures, while a significant share of the infrastructure remains in the hands of U.S.🇺🇸 payment systems such as Visa, Mastercard and Apple.

3️⃣ Consumers are not in a hurry to abandon cash. The most advanced EU country in this regard is Sweden🇸🇪, where only 5% of purchases at points of sale are paid in cash. Cards also remain widely used: digital wallets most often operate on top of them.

4️⃣ Digital euro: the initial phase has been completed, the ECB is expanding its technical capacity, legislation is expected by the end of 2026, the pilot project is planned for 2027, and market launch is expected by the end of the decade. The implementation of the EU Digital Identity Wallet is also progressing.

5️⃣ The main competitor to cards is full-featured A2A products. Wero, the flagship project of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), built on SEPA Instant, is positioned as a sovereign European A2A payment system. It has approximately 54 million registered users in Western Europe. Wero includes instant refunds, payment dispute mechanisms and anti-fraud tools. Card support is also planned for cases in which A2A payments are not accepted.

6️⃣ EU payments sovereignty requires interoperability. The EPI/Wero, Bancomat, Bizum, MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay systems, with a combined user base of approximately 130 million people across 13 countries (around 72% of the EU population), plan to establish a unified operating center. Customers will pay through their familiar local applications, while cross-system routing will occur transparently. Cross-border payments are planned to be introduced from 2027.

7️⃣ Broad market consolidation:

🔵 Global Payments acquired Worldpay for USD 22 billion in January 2026;

🔵 Visa incorporated open-banking specialist Tink into its Pay by Bank strategy;

🔵 Klarna went public on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2025;

🔵 #Revolut received a full banking license in the United Kingdom🇬🇧 in March 2026.

Total funding for European fintechs amounted to approximately USD 3.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026, one-third lower than a year earlier.

8️⃣ Fraud remains the main threat to payment providers: fraud losses rose 17% year over year, reaching EUR 4.2 billion. Around 85% of losses are attributable to credit-transfer fraud: current rules do not provide reimbursement in cases involving social engineering during payment authorization. PSD3/PSR is expected to strengthen customer protection.

9️⃣ Crypto, blockchain and tokenization: the market is moving from the experimental stage toward broader adoption. The role of fintechs is increasing, while central banks are developing digital currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins, which, together with tokenized deposits, are at the center of the 2026 agenda. Key problem areas are KYC models and trapped liquidity. MiCA and PSD2 requirements frequently overlap, creating additional regulatory complexity.

1️⃣0️⃣ The market is shifting from competition among individual payment methods to competition among ecosystems, where a single product combines instant A2A payments, card support, digital wallets, anti-fraud and compliance. The key advantage is compatibility between local and pan-European systems.

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