The European Commission now sees payments in the EU as a matter of strategy and sovereignty, not just technology. It treats them as critical infrastructure, Astrid Cousin of the Commission told the DiGi Pay 2026 conference in Sofia.
The EU expects to adopt the third Payment Services Directive (PSD3) and a Payment Services Regulation by the end of the year. Both are due to take effect in the first half of 2027, and both include rules against fraud.
Cousin is director for horizontal policies at the Commission's directorate-general for financial stability, financial services and the capital markets union. She joined the day-long conference at Inter Expo Center online in the morning. She outlined what the Commission is doing about the EU's fragmented payments market and to build a single, competitive European payments system.
Until recently, payments were seen mainly as a technical and administrative matter. Now the EU is betting on payment sovereignty, because of geopolitics and fast changes in how people pay. "To strengthen our strategic economic autonomy, we need one key condition. We must have a fully integrated and sovereign payments infrastructure," Cousin said.
She said the payments sector will shape Europe's economic future, and that without efficient, connected payments there can be no single European capital market. The EU still relies on providers from outside the bloc, especially for card payments. Sovereignty does not mean isolation, Cousin said. Europe must build and run competitive, innovative ways to pay by itself, under its own rules and in line with its business interests.
Instant transfers are a key part and could become the EU standard. They need efficient settlement of accounts, common standards, systems that work with each other, and room to grow across the whole European market.
Stablecoins are among the new ways to pay. These are digital assets whose value is tied to one currency or to a basket of world currencies. In the medium term, the digital euro is also coming, and the European Central Bank will issue it. Cousin put it at the centre of the future of payments in an increasingly digital economy. She said it must carry European values: protection of personal data, convenience and financial inclusion. "The digital euro aims to keep freedom of choice," she said.
The digital euro will not replace cash but will sit alongside it, Cousin said. She said cash remains an essential part of the system, and the digital euro will exist alongside private payment solutions.
The new package of laws widens the list of firms with duties beyond payment service providers. It covers interpersonal communication services, hosting services and large online platforms. The Regulation provides for an anti-fraud platform at the Commission, which national supervisors and private players will join.
Cousin said fighting fraud is the top priority as the market opens up further. Regulators must keep updating the rules, she said, and that is the aim of PSD3 and the Regulation. The rules must allow new solutions without putting security at risk, and cut fraud without stifling competition.
The Commission adopted its Retail Payments Strategy in 2020. It encourages new solutions, links between systems and competition, and backs pan-European ways to pay digitally. Cousin said innovation must be at the core of the Commission's approach, so that Europe leads on the next generation of payment systems.
The Commission is also watching closely payments ordered by artificial intelligence agents. Automation has clear benefits, but open questions remain, Cousin said: how the rules apply, under what conditions such an agent can order a transfer, and who is responsible for it.