Agreement for interoperability between the European mobile payment solutions MB WAY, BANCOMAT Pay® and BIZUM

Lisbon, December 14, 2023 - SIBS (MB WAY, Portugal), BANCOMAT (Italy) and BIZUM (Spain), leading companies in mobile payment services in their respective markets, have signed a letter of intent to implement interoperability. The agreement is intended to allow corporate users to make simple, convenient and secure instant payments in countries using their mobile phone.

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The objective of the agreement is to create a direct connection between the three main mobile payment solutions recognized by customers in their respective countries, opening a dialogue to develop future European payment solutions in subsequent phases and contribute to the development of an independent and solid pan-European payment market, allowing interoperability between currently existing payment solutions, and at the same time, exploiting SEPA instant payment standards and the best mobile payment solutions.

MB WAY, BANCOMAT Pay® and BIZUM provide services for payments between people (P2P) and between people and merchants (P2B). The agreement outlines the interoperability criteria between MB WAY, BANCOMAT Pay® and BIZUM, with the aim of developing P2P interoperability as early as 2024.

Teresa Mesquita, CMO of SIBS, comments: “With this agreement, we are taking an important step towards interoperability between MB WAY and the main European mobile payment solutions. This will allow our users in Portugal to send and receive money instantly from/to a Spanish or Italian mobile number, in the most convenient and secure way. We believe that the interoperability between European mobile payment solutions unlocks the potential of SEPA instant payments and creates the basis for truly efficient and innovative pan-European payments.”

For Oscar Occhipinti, CMO of BANCOMAT S.p.a.: “Thanks to this agreement, we can proudly announce that BANCOMAT Pay® is taking a further step towards European interoperability and, specifically, it is able to allow Italian customers to carry out P2P with Spanish and Portuguese customers. We believe that this is the right path to create a true pan-European alternative network, in order to increase transactions and the use of SCT-INST.”

Ángel Nigorra, CEO of Bizum, states: “The widespread acceptance of digital payment methods by users is an indisputable phenomenon. An example of this is Bizum in Spain, with more than 25 million users, where 'doing a bizum' has become part of the daily language of citizens.
With this agreement, Bizum aims to create a solution that meets all the payment and collection needs of European citizens, regardless of their country of origin, and for this reason, interoperability between markets is essential. We hope this is just the first step in allowing users to have a simple, convenient, secure and universal mobile payment method for their daily transactions.”

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