Eurosystem updates its retail payments strategy

22 November 2023

The Eurosystem today published an update of its retail payments strategy.

With the strategy, the Eurosystem aims to improve retail payments within the euro area and to strengthen the European payments market. The main goals of the strategy remain the same: to develop pan-European solutions for payments at the point of interaction (POI), governed at the European level, and to further strengthen the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), primarily through the full deployment of instant payments.

The Eurosystem’s retail payments strategy and the digital euro project are complementary. Moreover, a digital euro could contribute to meeting the goals of the strategy in various ways. For example, it would offer a pan-European payment solution and help private retail payment solutions to also achieve a pan-European reach.

The updated retail payments strategy also includes a new goal that reflects the importance of increasing the resilience of retail payments, including the need to make alternative payment solutions available as a contingency.

The Eurosystem first developed its current retail payments strategy in 2019 and then adopted an expanded version in 2020. As well as promoting European retail payment solutions that are safe and efficient for society as a whole, the strategy is aimed at meeting challenges to European sovereignty in the payments market.