ECB: “Card increasingly used, raising concerns about strategic autonomy of payments”

Brussels – More and more card payments, all with non-European international operators: there is continued scrutiny on how people shop in the EU and its euro area, and there have been renewed calls to reconsider established customs and practices. The European Central Bank, in its latest report on non-cash payments, points out that “since 2019, the rate of card usage in the EU has grown significantly,” the ECB said. “With nearly 70 billion payments in 2023, payment cards are the most widely used electronic payment instrument,” already totaling over half (54 percent) of all non-cash transactions, with wire transfers accounting for 22 percent, direct debits for 15 percent, and e-money payments for 7 percent.

The problem is that people rely on foreign operators and circuits to pay by card. The report shows that only nine national card schemes are active in the EU, each operating in only one member state. In the euro area alone, 13 countries rely entirely on international card schemes for card transactions. As a result, the ECB warns, “the report’s findings raise questions about the EU’s strategic autonomy in payments, particularly given the growing dominance of international schemes.”

Since the EU still relies “heavily” on non-EU solutions to operate card payments, the Eurotower analysts emphasize “the importance of implementing an EU solution” at the point of interaction to ensure operational resilience and strategic autonomy of the European payment systems. The ‘digital euro’ project aims to do just that: an all-European electronic and digital payment system for European single market transactions. It is what the ECB intends to work on.