Efforts by the European Payments Initiative to create a sovereign European alternative to US card schemes are being undermined by its ongoing reliance on cloud services from big US tech firms.
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The EPI is supported by 16 European banks and payment service providers and was founded to deliver a pan-European payment scheme capable of taking on Mastercard and Visa, with the objective of strengthening the long-term strategic autonomy and resilience of Europe’s payments ecosystem. The EPI’s Wero scheme has been live for P2P payments in Belgium, France, and Germany since 2024, currently serving 53 million users.
The initiative has received backing from the European Central Bank, which has become increasingly rattled by the volatile geopolitical envvironment in the wake of Donald Trump’s tarrifs war.
There’s just one problem – the EPI’s technical backbone remains reliant on services provided by US cloud providers.
“When EPI first launched Wero, only cloud services from international providers could deliver the performance, security and stability needed to deliver a competitive solution,” states the company. “EPI is committed to progressively increasing its use of European-based providers while maintaining the highest standards of performance, security and resilience, but Wero currently still relies on services from outside Europe in certain areas.”
While emphasising that all Wero data is stored in European data centers, and is encrypted and protected against potential extraterritorial access through appropriate security measures, the coalition says it is currently working to reduce its dependency on non-European suppliers.
“The market has evolved significantly in recent years, and we are now building on this progress to drive this transition forward,” says the company.