Tech

Bizum inspires the European Commission

It’s been just over six years since the creation of Bizum. Or, to be more exact, the publication in the BORME (Official Gazette of the Mercantile Registry) of the first inscriptions of Sociedad de Procesos de Pago SL with a shareholding made up of 29 Spanish banking and savings entities, whose objective was to create a new instant payment system between individuals and purchases in stores. With a peculiarity that surprised everyone: it does not charge commissions.

This model, which combines immediacy and free, contrasts with the classic model of bank transfer, which in many cases does entail costs, and which can also take two or even three days from the time it is ordered until it becomes effective. Thus, it is not surprising that in these years it has become the reference system for many people, when it comes to making transfers between individuals. It is true that it has some limitations, such as a maximum amount per operation and per month, but even so, within these limits, it greatly improves what traditional transfers provide.

Although for us Bizum has already become a common service, the truth is that when we cross our borders and explore the options in other European countries, we see that the panorama is tremendously irregular, which means that, in the common space European, only 11% of the transfers made are made through platforms such as Bizum. Something that is striking, since the banking sector has had more than enough time to study and apply the learning provided by the Spanish service.

Obviously, there are other services to make immediate transfers over the Internet. PayPal, in this sense, is the oldest and best consolidated reference in the market, but we must observe a very important difference with respect to Bizum, and that is that this one has been created and is operated by the banking sector, even if it is through the SL constituted for this purpose. PayPal, however, has no connection with it.

Bizum inspires the European Commission

Thus, and according to Europa Press reports, the European Commission wants to export the Bizum model, or one quite similar, to all of Europe and, therefore, has presented a proposal whose objective is that banks are obliged to offer an instant payment and transfer system (in less than 10 seconds). The service must be operational 24 hours a day and seven days a week, and must be operational throughout the European Union. This first step to establish this rule is taken after the Commission has verified the proper functioning of services such as the Spanish one.

The Commission does not propose, however, that these services should be free, but it does intend to establish that its cost is, in any case, lower than that of traditional transfers and therefore, of course, even more so than the snapshots that many entities already offer, but which in many cases are much more expensive. The European Commission hoped that the example would spread, so to speak, but after verifying that this has not been the case, it takes the measure of regulating it to prevent its arrival from being delayed even more.

We already know that these types of processes are quite slow, and at the moment we are in a very initial phase, in which the details still have to be negotiated between the European Parliament and the member states of the Union. However, and given the example provided by Bizum, yes we can hope that this proposal will go ahead and, consequently, that in the medium term Europe finally has an instant transfer system, quite an advance.

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