What if you could pay anyone, anytime, wherever you are? Be it with cash, by card, online or with your smartphone? And what if all these payments were instant? In a nutshell, this is what I will talk about today: how we can make this happen.
We already have the euro, making it possible for you to pay with the same banknotes and coins throughout the euro area. Now we want to make cashless payments as easy, fast, and far reaching as smartphone services. Users – be they consumers, retailers or businesses – do not see why payments cannot be instant and boundless like e-mails, text messages or WhatsApp.