Bizum , Bancomat and SIBS have teamed up to allow users in Spain, Italy, and Portugal to make instant mobile payments and help develop a unified European payments market. The three companies have jointly stated that their accord was open for other European payments providers to join in at a later stage.

The letter of intent for the accord was signed by Spain-based mobile payment firm Bizum, Italy-based ATM machine operator Bancomat, which runs online payment service Bancomat Pay, and Portugal's SIBS, owner of mobile payment supplier MB WAY. Bizum, Bancomat Pay, and MB WAY provide person-to-person and person-to-business payments to 42.7 million people in the three countries, who in 2023 made a total of 1.47 billion payments. Reshaping European payments The three companies have said that their goal was to allow users to make person-to-person payments already in 2024, and then expand the range of payments they provided through their systems.

Europe's payments market is still fragmented, and financial industry supervisors have been calling for more innovation and standardisation across countries. European companies face competition from US rivals, which include fintechs such as PayPal or incumbents MasterCard and Visa. EU electronic payments totalled EUR 240 trillion in 2021 from EUR 184.2 trillion in 2017, boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Officials from Bizum have said that this is just the first step for users to have a universal mobile payment method for their everyday transactions. In Spain alone, Bizum has more than 25.3 million active users, with 38 affiliated banks such as Santander and BBVA, and works with 52,400 outlets. .