Bancomat, EPI and SIBS complete cross-border QR payment interoperability proof of concept

Three of Europe’s domestic payment schemes have demonstrated QR code interoperability across borders, a practical step toward a unified European alternative to card network dominance at the point of sale.

Bancomat (Italy), EPI and SIBS-MB WAY (Portugal) have completed a proof of concept (PoC) allowing consumers to pay via QR code across national boundaries using their existing domestic payment apps. The PoC shows that the technical plumbing for cross-border instant payment acceptance at physical and digital points of sale can work across multiple scheme infrastructures without requiring merchants or consumers to adopt a single new platform.

European payment sovereignty has been a policy aspiration for years, but progress has been uneven. EPI’s wero wallet is live but coverage remains patchy. Demonstrating interoperability between EPI and established national schemes such as MB WAY and Bancomat suggests a federated model may be more achievable than a single pan-European scheme replacing entrenched domestic habits. The question now is whether this can move from controlled PoC to production at scale, and whether other national schemes will join.

Editorial note: This is the most consequential European payments story in the feed — it moves the long-running European payment sovereignty narrative forward with a concrete technical milestone involving three major domestic schemes.

Sources: Bancomat, EPI, SIBS-MB WAY complete cross-border QR payment interoperability PoC — The Paypers

SolvaPay raises €2.4 million to build agentic payments infrastructure

A Swedish startup’s pre-seed round for AI-initiated payment infrastructure is an early signal that the European fintech ecosystem is beginning to build for autonomous commerce, not just human-directed transactions.

SolvaPay, based in Stockholm, has raised €2.4 million in pre-seed funding to develop payment infrastructure designed for agentic commerce – transactions initiated and completed by AI agents rather than human users. The platform aims to handle the authentication, routing and reconciliation challenges that arise when software agents, not people, are the counterparties in a payment flow.

The round is small, but the timing is notable. Worldline published a piece this week on agentic e-commerce, and the concept is gaining traction in payments strategy discussions. The core question for European payments is whether existing rails — SEPA instant payments, PSD2-authorised payment initiation — can support agent-to-agent transactions, or whether new infrastructure layers are needed. SolvaPay is betting on the latter. Whether that bet is premature or prescient will depend on how quickly AI agent adoption moves from demos to production commerce.

Editorial note: Selected not for the funding amount but for what it represents — early-stage infrastructure investment in a category that could reshape European payment initiation if agentic commerce gains traction.

Sources: Agentic payments startup SolvaPay scores €2.4 million in pre-seed funding — Finextra