Country yearbook · 2025
Europe 2025
A complete year-end snapshot of the Europe payments market — banks, card schemes, acquirers, regulatory framework, and market infrastructure.
At a glance
73
Sections
68
Data tables
0
Charts
2025
Edition
What's inside
01
Introduction
02
1.1 Digital Payments for the Digital Economy
03
1.2 Legal Framework for Payment Services in Europe
04
1.3 Competing Payment Ecosystems
05
1.4 Overview of Cashless Payments in Europe
06
1.5 Overview of Cashless Payment Services in Europe
07
1.6 Types of Regulated Payment Service Providers
08
1.7 Online Payments in Europe
09
1.8 Mobile Payments in Europe
10
1.9 Central Bank Digital Currencies, Cryptocurrency Products
11
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CDBC) – The Digital Cash Challenge
12
1.10 About Payment Fraud in Europe
13
1.11 Digital Payment Transformation
14
1.12 Digital Payment Infrastructure
15
1.13 Addendum – Card Interchange Fee Arrangements in Europe
16
2.1 About the Card Payment Ecosystem in Europe
17
2.2 Card Payment Services in Europe
18
E-money Purchases with Prepaid Products
19
2.3 Card Payment Service Providers
20
2.4 International Card Schemes in Europe
21
2.5 Domestic Card Scheme Transformation
22
2.6 Interchange Arrangements in Europe
23
2.7 Digitalisation of Card Payments
24
2.8 About Card Fraud in Europe
25
2.9 Card Payment Service Trends
26
Digital Banking Payments in-store
27
2.10 Outlook – Digital Card Payment Platforms
28
2.11 Addendum – M&A Activity among Payment Processors
29
2.12 Addendum – Transformation of former Interbank Organisations
30
2.13 Bank Service Providers in CEE and the Baltic States
31
3.1 About Open Banking in Europe
32
3.2 The Open Banking Payment Ecosystem
33
3.3 Cardless Digital Payment Services in Europe
34
3.4 Cardless Payment Service Providers
35
3.5 Payment Initiation Service Workflow
36
3.6 Account Information Service Workflow
37
3.7 About Digital Payment Fraud in Europe
38
3.8 Open Banking Payment Service Trends
39
3.9 About Open Banking APIs
40
3.10 Outlook – Digital Payment Transformation
41
3.11 Outlook – Open Banking payment infrastructure
42
4.1 Regional Card Summary
43
4.2 Debit Cards
44
4.3 Credit Cards
45
4.4 Total Cards
46
4.5 Card Payments Per Capita
47
4.6 Card Payments in Context of Cashless Payments
48
4.7 Leading Card Issuers in Europe
49
4.8 Background – Cards and EMV Migration
50
4.9 Card Fraud in Europe
51
The Legal Framework for Card Acceptance Services and Acquirers
52
Acquirer Infrastructure in Europe
53
Challenges for Card Acquirers
54
Merchant Demands for Card Acceptance Services
55
Merchant Service Charges
56
5.1 EFTPOS Terminals Analysis
57
5.2 ATM Analysis
58
ATM Withdrawal Fee Arrangements
59
5.3 ATM Terminal Networks
60
5.4 Largest Card Acquirers in Europe
61
6.1 European Banks and Digital Banking Trends
62
Market Trend – Mobile Banking Apps
63
Market Trend – Omnichannel Self-Service Banking
64
Market Trend – Banks and Digital Wallets
65
Market Trend – Banks and Digitalisation of Payments
66
Market Trend – Banks embraced Immediate Payments
67
Market Trend – European Banks, Open Banking and Open APIs
68
6.2 European Banks and Digital Card Business
69
Banks, Digital Cards and NFC Technologies
70
6.3 Western Europe
71
Structural Characteristics – Background
72
Obstacles to Cross-Border Banking
73
6.4 Central and Eastern Europe
Sample
Digital and Card Payment Yearbook