Macron urges Europe to build its own payment system to protect financial sovereignty

Wednesday 01 April 2026 - 11:20

By: Dakir Madiha

Macron urges Europe to build its own payment system to protect financial sovereignty

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Europe Tuesday to develop its own payment infrastructure, warning that ceding control of financial transactions to American companies would compromise the continent's sovereignty. The remarks, delivered by video message at the Carte Bancaire summit in Paris, represent the latest push by a European leader to reduce the region's dependence on Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal.

"We must build a sovereign payment model," Macron said, according to an Agence France-Presse report. He described payment systems as an essential element of sovereignty and cited Wero, the digital wallet developed under the European Payments Initiative, as a European alternative. "Abandoning control over payments would mean accepting that the heart of our transactions depends on actors who are not necessarily aligned with us, who do not necessarily share the same interests," he added. He noted that the French Carte Bancaire network has more than 77 million cards in circulation but faces growing competition from American networks and mobile payment platforms.

Macron's intervention forms part of a broader European effort to reduce American dominance over the continent's payments landscape. International card networks account for two-thirds of card transactions in the eurozone, according to the European Central Bank. In January, ECB President Christine Lagarde said Europe had an urgent need to reduce that dependence.

EPI, a consortium of 16 major banks including BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, launched Wero in July 2024. The platform now counts 52.5 million registered users across Belgium, France, and Germany, up from 43.5 million in September, Reuters reported last week. In February, EPI signed an agreement with the EuroPA Alliance to build an interoperable network connecting the national payment systems of 13 countries and roughly 130 million users.

Concerns that the Trump administration could restrict European access to American payment infrastructure have accelerated interest in alternatives, EPI's chief executive told Reuters. That concern mirrors the experience of Russia, which was cut off from Western financial infrastructure following its invasion of Ukraine. Wero plans to expand to Luxembourg and the Netherlands over the coming year, with cross-border person-to-person payments set to launch later in 2026, followed by e-commerce and point-of-sale capabilities in 2027.