There’s been a lot of talk lately about Christine Lagarde call for Europe to develop its own digital payment platform. The assessment of the President of European Central Bank reflects a critical strategic need.
Speaking on The Pat Kenny Show, Lagarde underscored Europe’s dependence on foreign digital payment infrastructure. “Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Alipay are all controlled by American or Chinese companies,” she noted, arguing, “We should make sure there is a European offer.”
„I think it’s really important for all of us to have digital payments under our control,” Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, called for the creation of a European alternative to the American Visa and Mastercard.
„If you think about it, nowadays many of our digital payments, when you pay, for example, in e-commerce or peer-to-peer, or use your card or phone, always depend on non-European infrastructure. Whether you use a card or a phone, it usually happens via Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Alipay. Where do they all come from? Well, either from the USA or from China. And this whole infrastructure mechanism that allows you to make payments, credit and debit, is not a European solution.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is calling for a payments revolution — one that breaks Europe’s reliance on U.S. and Chinese platforms like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Alipay. Describing it as “a march towards independence,” Lagarde said Europe must build its own alternative to secure financial sovereignty. A fully unified capital market, she added, could pave the way for deeper fiscal integration — with a potential value add of up to €3 trillion annually.
„Think for a second, if we removed the internal barriers that we have set for ourselves in Europe, our economic well-being would increase significantly.„
Dariusz Mazurkiewicz, CEO at BLIK Polish Payment Standard stated: „A strong, independent European offer is essential today. Solutions like BLIK prove that local innovation, rooted in the banking sector and scaled successfully, can already serve as a blueprint for a pan-European infrastructure. President Lagarde’s words confirm that the time has come for systemic decisions at the EU level. Europe has the potential, the expertise and the partners to build a resilient, homegrown payment standard. BLIK is a part of that future.”
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Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
