Spanish banks to allow Bizum instant payments to other European countries
Banco Santander has become the first financial institution in Spain to offer Bizum payments to other European countries.
The news is a step forward for digital banking in Spain, allowing people to be more financially connected with the rest of Europe.
The system is based on technical connectivity enabled by the European Payments Initiative (EuroPA), which seeks to unify payment services across Europe.
Following successful pilot tests, this connectivity is now a reality, and new countries and banking institutions are expected to join the network in the coming months.
Thanks to the interconnection of the mobile payment platforms, Bizum customers will now be able to connect with Bancomat in Italy and MB WAY in Portugal.
According to the bank, it will connect 50 million users and 186 financial institutions, which is first step while awaiting a single European solution, for which no agreement has yet been reached.
This means that Santander customers will be able to send and receive money instantly from and to users in these two countries, as well as in Andorra.
It will be carried out in the same way as it is in Spain, by selecting a contact in your address book via a phone number, without having to enter an IBAN or use bank cards.
Although Santander is the first bank to join, it is set to be rolled out very soon by several other banks in the country.
Abanca, OpenBank, CaixaBank, BBVA, and Banco Sabadell are all expected to implement this service by the second quarter of 2025.
While Europe continues its search for a single solution to transfers between countries, these platforms have taken the issue into their own hands, thanks to the EuroPA initiative.
The hope is that Europe will adopt this method using the existing infrastructure in the future.
Bizum is a Spanish mobile service that allows users to send an amount of money that usually ranges between 50 cents and €500. It enables you to make payments or request money from a phone number, if you have a Spanish account number from a bank linked to it, and now an Italian, Portuguese or Andorran one too.
It's a free app service which was launched by Spain's main banks in 2016 as a way of competing with other mobile payment services such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Paypal and others.
Bizum has over 20 million users in Spain and is how many Spaniards choose to split the bill, pay small amounts for services and even pay their rent.
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