The European Payments Alliance (EuroPA) has hit a milestone in its efforts to bring instant cross-border payments to the continent with customers of Spain's CaixaBank now able to send money to people in Portugal, Italy and Andorra via the Bizum mobile transfer scheme.
CaixaBank and imagin customers can now send and receive money to these countries without using the recipient’s phone number, without needing bank cards or knowing the account number.
EuroPA enables interoperability between Italy's Bancomat, Spanish scheme Bizum and Portugal's MB WAY, connecting more than 50 million users and 186 financial institutions from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Andorra.
The scope of the alliance is expected to grow, with Poland and the Nordic countries slated to join in the coming months.
Much like the European Payments Initiative, EuroPA is striving to provide a euro-owned payment system capable of wresting control away from US card brands.
In June, the two schemes said they would investigate a joint offering that would combine their efforts to cover all use cases - person-to-person and commercial payments both online and in-store - across the markets of the participating services.