PPE: European digital wallet will enter testing phase from the end of 2023

This is a project that has been discussed for years. From 2021, the European Union has announced its goal of developing a direct competitor to Google Pay, Apple Pay, and even Visa and Mastercard. The idea is simple: Proposing a digital wallet that will work in the EU’s 27 member states.

Today, this audacious project answers on behalf of EPI for the European Payments Initiative. EPI is funded and supported by several European shareholder banks.Such as Crédit Mutuel, BPN Paribas, Crédit Agricole, ING, Banque Postale and Deutsche Bank and Belfius.

These organizations summarize PPE as follows:A unified instant account-to-account solution developed in Europe”. In other words, PPE pay via mobile phones with instant remittance. And as we can tell on the official website of EPI, a new step will be taken in the deployment of the system.

Also to read : Apple Pay, Google Pay – contactless payment explodes in 2020

PPE enters test phase 1 in France and Germany

In the effect, first test phase of this P2P digital wallet (person-to-person payment) will be launched with specific users as soon as possible. end of 2023. Germany and France will be the first countries to try the service. Belgium will follow from 2024.

As EPI Company reminds us, this region represents more than half of non-cash retail payments in the Eurozone. Deployment in other countries of the Old Continent is scheduled for later, without further details. Coming back to PPE, the purpose finally to cover all the use cases that users encounter on a daily basis :

• person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-business (P2Pro) payments
• online shopping
• point of sale payments

EPI application will suggest in this sense several payment methods such as single transactions, installment payments, recurring automatic payments on delivery, reservations or subscriptions. “EPI is positioned as an innovation platform for the European payment ecosystem. It will form the basis for the implementation of the European Commission and European Central Bank / Eurosystem strategy in terms of retail payment”. Epi Company concludes.