# Unusable instant payments

European merchants can't take instant payments across borders

Problem 0028 · Finance · Theme: Coordination · What it would take: A funded startup · Scope: Global · Editorial grade: High · Framed 27 September 2026 · Framed from public reporting

Europe already has a way to move money between bank accounts in seconds, at any hour: instant payments. Merchants can rarely take them, and almost never from a customer in another country. Each country's card scheme works at home and stops at the border, and the software that would let a till or an online checkout accept an instant payment has been slow to arrive. So money can move, but a shop cannot be paid that way. Meanwhile the international card networks keep their hold because every shopper and every merchant already uses them, which makes any alternative hard to adopt even when the plumbing beneath it is ready.

## Who lives with it

European merchants · shoppers · payment service providers

## Why now

Writing for CEPR on 25 September 2026, Agnès Bénassy-Quéré of the Banque de France reports that 13 of the euro area's 21 countries still rely entirely on non-EU networks for card payments, and that even the domestic schemes stop at national borders, although the euro area has had its own instant-payment system since 2018. She argues the private sector has been too slow to build the software at tills and online checkouts that would let people use it.

## Why it matters

A way to move money is not yet a way to be paid. The gap stays open because the card networks already connect most shoppers and merchants, while the newer schemes stop at national borders, so a merchant gains little by adding one. A small team could start narrow: let merchants who trade across one border accept instant payments at checkout, instead of trying to replace Europe's payment networks.

## From public reporting

- [Retail and wholesale payments: Europe has a plan](https://cepr.org/publications/retail-and-wholesale-payments-europe-has-plan), Centre for Economic Policy Research, 25 September 2026

## Cite it

“European merchants can't take instant payments across borders.” Ainna Problem Radar, problem 0028, 27 September 2026. https://ainna.ai/problems/european-merchants-without-cross-border-checkout-access-to-instant-payments

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