Billions of transactions happen yearly on the EU market. Yet Europe’s overreliance on US-owned payments schemes has increased dramatically.
In 2023, Visa and Mastercard processed about 4.7 trillion USD in payment volume across the bloc. Transactions in 13 out of 21 eurozone member states still run exclusively on international card schemes. US card brands monopolize almost the entire international segment, handling 61% of the euro-area card transactions.
