Feedback: Bizum dominates its market in Spain

The Bizum mobile payment service has established itself among Spanish users since its launch in 2016. Now very popular, it is continuing to develop its services and roll out, seeking to consolidate its status as the benchmark payment service between private individuals. This positioning is in stark contrast to the promise of interoperability and harmonization in the European market made by another announced service: Wero.

FACTS

• aThe service also brings together 38 affiliated banks, including leading names such as Santander, CaixaBank and BBVA.

CHALLENGES

• Legitimizing strategic choices: while the EPI project is taking shape, there are no plans to deploy Wero in Spain. The Spanish banks, initially involved in the project, distanced themselves from EPI in 2021. In particular, they refused to finance Wero.

• Multiplying uses: Spanish banks are now working on deploying value-added services around Bizum, as well as developing new functionalities. In addition to payment between individuals, the service has also enabled affiliated merchants to be paid online, since 2020. Bizum also opened up to younger users last April. In July 2024, CaixaBank used Bizum to allocate expenses. Finally, BBVA launched a digital identification solution with Bizum in September 2023.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• In France, Wero has just announced its deployment in place of PayLib. The 35 million PayLib users will be accompanied to Wero as part of a simplified switchover. Paylib will cease to operate definitively at the beginning of 2025.

• Spanish banks, for their part, are banking on the opposite strategy, strengthening Bizum and even developing a unified payment offering based on Bizum. The partnership signed in December 2023 between Bizum, Bancomat and SBIS has the same objectives as EPI, namely to offer a unified payment solution on a European scale.