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Beyond Ambition: What It Will Take to Future-Proof European Payments
The European payments sector stands at a pivotal moment. Recent regulatory pushes, the rollout of initiatives like SEPA Instant, and the formation of unified digital wallets such as Wero have signaled the EU’s determination to build infrastructure that reflects its long-term sovereignty goals. But ambition alone is not enough.
While headlines focus on inclusion, interoperability, and innovation, actual implementation tells a different story. Adoption of real-time payments remains limited. Fragmentation across member states slows progress. And despite the increasing presence of fintechs, decision-making still largely favors incumbent institutions.
This disconnect reveals a broader issue: the gap between regulatory vision and practical transformation. Even with initiatives underway, core bottlenecks — from infrastructure and governance to pricing and public trust — continue to impede widespread change.
At the center of this discussion is the question of systemic design. What would it take for Europe to not only match, but surpass legacy models built around cards, batch settlements, and closed-loop ecosystems? What kind of architecture would allow digital wallets to serve not just consumers, but small merchants, freelancers, and businesses with day-to-day needs? And how can that system be governed in a way that gives newer players a real seat at the table?
These questions aren't theoretical. They point to active decisions being made right now — decisions that will shape the direction of Europe’s payments environment for decades.
To understand what’s at stake, FinTech Weekly spoke with Christian Caumont, CEO of YowPay and a longtime contributor to infrastructure design across fraud prevention, identity, and real-time finance. His experience spans both traditional and decentralized systems, with a particular focus on integrating high-performance tools into Europe’s financial ecosystem.
In this conversation, Christian outlines the foundational changes still required for Europe’s payment system to meet its own goals. He discusses the importance of technical parity between banks and fintechs, the role of programmable infrastructure in small business finance, and the emerging tension between regulatory frameworks and user adoption.
Rather than treat real-time payments as a final goal, he frames them as a starting point — one that only delivers value if paired with open standards, consistent APIs, and practical access for a broader range of actors.
He also points to the risks of centralized control, especially when past projects have faltered due to limited participation or overly rigid architectures. In his view, resilience will depend not on locking in control, but on creating systems that flex with input from across the ecosystem — including small businesses and developers, not just financial institutions.
As Europe moves further into its next phase of digital financial integration, these questions carry more urgency. SEPA Instant cannot remain a niche tool. Wallets like Wero cannot succeed as isolated platforms. And payment sovereignty must mean more than branding — it must translate into full technical and legal ownership of infrastructure, data, and governance.
This is not a conversation about future possibilities. It is about current design choices. And the implications are already material: from how small merchants invoice clients, to how consumers pay across borders, to how new entrants gain traction in a market historically dominated by a few.
We’re pleased to share this discussion with Christian Caumont, who brings a systems-level perspective to a topic often clouded by regulatory language and surface-level metrics. His view makes clear that real transformation in Europe’s payments space will require more than just technology. It will require structural participation — and a willingness to build systems that serve beyond incumbents.
Enjoy!
1. With Revolut joining Wero, we’re seeing a shift toward placing fintechs and banks on equal footing within SEPA infrastructure. From your perspective, what technical or governance adjustments are required to support that balance long-term?
With Revolut joining Wero, we’re clearly seeing a shift toward putting fintechs and banks on more equal footing within instant SEPA payments. To make that balance sustainable in the long run, a few things need to happen.
Firstly, decision-making needs to be shared. As of now, the bigger banks still tend to have the most influence when it comes to setting the rules. Fintechs should also be able to shape the policies and technical standards that affect everyone.
Secondly, smaller players must be properly supported, meaning that we need to give fintechs the same kind of access to infrastructure, resources, and even funding opportunities that bigger institutions have access to. If SEPA wants to stay relevant and innovative, it has to build a system where both fintechs and banks can grow and collaborate on an equal footing.
2. Adoption of instant SEPA remains low relative to its potential. What bottlenecks—whether regulatory, infrastructural, or behavioral—do you see as most critical to resolve in the next 12–18 months?
The adoption of instant SEPA is still stagnating behind its potential, and several key bottlenecks need to be addressed in order to resolve the current issues.
A major issue is uneven pricing: many banks continue to charge extra fees for instant transfers, which naturally discourages everyday users from making the switch. On top of that, implementation is fragmented. Not all EU countries are enforcing the same rules or timelines, which creates confusion and slows down momentum. The growing diversification of European initiatives, like the coexistence of EPI and EPA, can actually reduce the simplicity that’s needed to make real adoption take off.
There’s also a fundamental infrastructure problem: less than 15% of SEPA transfers were instant in 2024, largely due to the many banks that still haven’t been properly onboarded, and APIs that are not consistently integrated.
From the behavioral perspective, consumer awareness and education remains low, as many people still see instant payments as a niche,even risky option.
3. Europe’s push for sovereignty in payments through the EPI is often framed as a response to non-European players. What would true independence look like from a systems and standards standpoint?
When we talk about Europe’s push for payment sovereignty through initiatives like the EPI, it’s often seen as a reaction to the dominance of non-European players. However,independence has to continue further. At the systems level, it would mean Europe running its own complete payment infrastructure from end to end, without relying on giants such as Visa, and Mastercard, creating a fully European technical backbone.
However, true European sovereignty should go beyond infrastructure, implying a unified framework of rules that include mandatory real-time capabilities with open and standardized APIs that all banks and institutions are required to adopt.This would ensure that any EU citizen or business can send and receive payments instantly, no matter which country or bank they’re using.
Data control is another crucial piece: all sensitive payment data should stay within the EU, governed by GDPR and other regulations to enhance digital sovereignty.
Finally, there needs to be legal resilience and resistance to foreign interference and influence. Real independence would imply complete European control not only over the technology, but also over the data, the standards, and the legal frameworks that support the entire system.
4. You've worked on monetization, identity, and fraud infrastructure. In the context of unified European wallets like Wero, what safeguards or verification layers do you see as essential to both compliance and consumer trust?
There are a few key safeguards that seem necessary to take into account when thinking about unified European wallets like Wero, both to ensure administrative conformity and to build consumer trust.
Firstly, strong customer authentication is indispensable. Whether it’s biometric verification or two-factor authentication, security must be robust yet seamless for the user, adding protection without making everyday payments a struggle.
The system also needs to be smart enough to instantly flag suspicious activity, without unnecessarily flagging or delaying legitimate payments.
Transparency and control over personal data is equally critical. People should clearly understand how their data is being used, and they should be able to move that data easily between wallets.
Finally, clear dispute resolution and liability rules are a necessity, especially for peer-to-peer payments or transactions involving small merchants. Consumers need to know that the system will protect them fairly and efficiently.
5. With digital wallets extending from peer-to-peer to point-of-sale and B2B transactions, what changes do you foresee in how payment flows are structured—especially for small merchants and freelancers?
As digital wallets expand beyond sole peer-to-peer transfers to include point-of-sale and B2B transactions, we’re likely to see some major changes in how payment flows are structured, especially for small merchants and freelancers.
One big shift may be the rise of direct-from-account payments, where SEPA Instant transfers are triggered by something as simple as scanning a QR code or using NFC at checkout, completely bypassing traditional card networks and their limitations.
For freelancers, this could mean being able to send real-time, standardized invoices that are directly tied to SEPA Instant, automatically including VAT details and compliance data. Transaction fees could then drop significantly, and digital wallets would become more than just payment tools, with features like invoicing, tax support, and income tracking, reducing the burden for smaller businesses. In B2B contexts, we might even see the rise of programmable payments, like smart contracts that release funds in stages, based on milestones.
That said, there are also important aspects to avoid. If market players feel they’re being forced into a rigid system without added value, we risk fragmentation rather than progress.
Past efforts have also failed due to closed architectures that restricted API access or made onboardings too complicated, especially for small businesses and startups.There’s also the danger of over-centralisation. Concentrating too much control in a single entity can create political and technical vulnerabilities while also suffocating innovation.
Ultimately, for any European solution to succeed, it should be designed with the input of fintechs, merchants, and consumers, so that the initiative results in something people want to adopt.
6. When you think about the future of payment architecture in Europe, what signs will indicate that we’ve moved from regulatory ambition to real systemic transformation?
Real transformation in the payments space will be characterised by a number of key shifts.
Firstly, SEPA Instant payments have to become the norm (a clear change would mean that over half of all SEPA transactions across consumer and business segments are instant.)
A widely spread availability of universal digital wallets (like Wero) that work seamlessly across banks, fintechs, merchants, and mobile platforms would also indicate significant progress.
For smaller businesses, real transformation means they’ll regularly use instant, digital-first tools for regular or every-day tasks (paying the staff for example) .
In addition, witnessing a drop in the dominance of card networks such as Visa and Mastercard for domestic payments within the EU would likely reflect a growing preference for faster, more efficient alternatives such as SEPA instant.
Finally, when it comes to cross-border payments, they should feel just as easy, cheap, and fast as sending money locally. Ultimately, the most telling sign of transformation will be consumer behavior: when people begin actively choosing SEPA-based payment methods over traditional card payments.
Christian Caumont is an expert in technology entrepreneurship, with over 30 years of experience in machine learning, data monetization, and the Internet of Things. He began his career pioneering early ML applications, and was among the first to launch online businesses, developing his own payment systems, e-commerce platforms, and fraud detection tools — including projects like winds-up.com, LeMarinSurfShop, and H24SecurityManagement. His core focus has always been industrializing cutting-edge technologies,transforming innovation into practical, scalable solutions.
Throughout his career, he collaborated with industry leaders like Google and GoDaddy within the ICANN framework. More recently, Christian spearheaded the creation of Go.cam, an open source AI-based age verification tool, and Yowpay, a SEPA payment solution designed to meet the needs of European freelancers and merchants, filling a key gap in the region’s financial ecosystem.
