Spain has become the leading European Union country in automatic money transfers between individuals thanks to Bizum, the account directory shared between the country's banks.
Of all types of bank transfers, 53% are made immediately in Spain, compared to the average of 15% in the European Union. Within this modality, Bizum represents 95% of the movements.
These data are collected in a Bank of Spain blog entry published this Tuesday, which highlights the progress of the payment platform, which has become a reference at the European level.
Just a month ago, the European Parliament approved a new regulation so that all EU banks offer their customers a payment service in less than ten seconds. It is not only a technological challenge, but also a sectoral one, since entities must agree, as has happened in Spain, to share customer data.
Bizum was born in 2016, shortly after the EU began working on the concept of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), which has not been fully developed until now. The new regulation aims to avoid waits for retail customers and companies, especially SMEs, as well as improve the security of transfers.
According to data collected by the Bank of Spain, Bizum has more than 25 million users, which is equivalent to more than half of the population, and can already be used in more than 58,000 electronic businesses. There are 38 banks registered in the directory, which is equivalent to 99% of the market.
Last year it served to channel 903 million transactions between individuals, 30 million electronic commerce transactions and just over half a million payments to NGOs.
In mid-December, Bizum began negotiations with payment service platforms in Italy, Bancomat Pay, and in Portugal, MP Way, to try to form a large immediate transfer service in southern Europe. Between them, they have a potential of 42 million customers and a payment volume of more than 1.4 billion transactions per year.
