Nets and Worldline take stakes in bank-backed rival to Visa and Mastercard

...."Oliver Wyman partner Martina Weimert as CEO"

Seems strange to appoint a representative of a consutancy organisation to such a critical role. I wonder why?

The previous candidate as CEO was french Nicolas HUSS, but he withdraw quickly his candidacy. And then, it appears very simple for the interim company to appoint Martina Weimart who had conduct all the previous discussions between banks since Monnet and know very well the subject.

Let us hope that the team responsible for the delivery of this project fully engage with the merchant community who will be key to its sucess (or failure). Nicolas Huss had a good understanding of merchant needs..... 

I wonder if EPI will handle only a payment system and cards/wallet, or if they will also take a shot at the overlay services such as RtP?

Another pan-european card scheme... all the previous ones have failed without even starting.

Guys, you don't need to try with a card anymore - all you need is an account-based pan-european scheme which settles over SEPA Inst. Launch it at all ecommerce gateways and force banks and customers into using it with lower costs of transaction. Mobile phone is your programmable interface for wallet, p2p and even physical POS payments.

@Andrai, I agree with you but my understanding is that the EPI participating banks want a product that reaches beyond just the EU but also internationally - hence the co-badging intention with V/MC 

@Andrai, I have thought about this in the past. With an account based scheme, you need to address various trust issues from the ground up. How does the consumer know they are paying the merchant and not someone else? How do you identify that the consumer is allowed access to the account making the payment?

A "card" scheme addresses these and the rails are in place - a new wheel might not be justified

@Vernon, you're absolutely right - that's why I said "create a scheme" with all the rules, fees, protocols, chargebacks, merchant management, etc. There still needs to be a scheme - just no need to invent another card-based scheme which is not going to break through.