Digital payments companies launch new EU trade body: EDPIA

Ingenico Group, Nets Group, Nexi, and Worldline have announced the launch of an EU advocacy alliance bringing together Europe’s independent payment services providers. The “European Digital Payments Industry Alliance” (EDPIA)’s vision is to engage in EU policy discussions impacting the EU payments sector, and for Europe to become a global leader in digital payments, which can fuel the completion of the Digital Single Market for the benefit of consumers, businesses and the public sector.

The EDPIA believes in a strong and properly enforced European policy framework that enables intense competition between transparent and market-based solutions that compete for trust of payment services users.

“I am very excited about this major initiative. The EDPIA will give a voice to the incredible technology and engineering behind Europe’s payments industry. Europe has a wealth of world-class payments firms which have become strongholds of Europe’s FinTech environment,” outlines Gilles Grapinet, Chairman and CEO of Worldline, and the first President of the EDPIA.

“We want to help demystifying our industry and offer European society a better understanding of what is behind the payments terminals and online payments engines it uses daily. The proven reliability and flawless availability of payments infrastructure during the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis is a good reminder of the critical importance for our society of the European digital payment industry. By launching the EDPIA, we intend to emphasise our role through constructive dialogue with policy makers and other stakeholders that determine Europe’s payments landscape.”

Whilst the EDPIA joins an already busy landscape of EU payments trade bodies, it is the only trade body that represents specialised digital payment services providers that are all headquartered in Europe and do not engage directly in banking services.

To support a rules-based competitive single market in which innovation thrives, the EDPIA believes the payments sector needs a better ecosystem.

“The development of digital payments is a fundamental driver for innovation, modernisation and growth in Europe, with a strong positive social, economic and environmental impact,” explains Paolo Bertoluzzo, CEO of Nexi and Vice-President of the EDPIA.

“This development is key to enable modern, effective and secure omnichannel commerce for all merchants – including small ones – who represent a strategic sector for the European economy. The EDPIA will work with all key stakeholders and policy makers to build a world-class payments ecosystem, boosting digitalization in Europe for the benefit of all European citizens, enterprises and public administrations. This ecosystem certainly includes banks, who are and will remain essential.”

To stimulate an innovative payments ecosystem, the EDPIA believes the EU should build on the EU’s SEPA project, which will allow new technologies like account-to-account payments to thrive, including on a cross-border basis. Though card payments will remain important in the future, these new technologies bring welcome diversity.