Bizum

The European Bizum will soon be a reality. It is very bad news for VISA and Matercard

by

Europe will have its pan-European mobile payment system. Although we all thought that we would have a unique and universal Bizum For EU countries, what will happen will be a little different, but just as effective and probably better: long live interoperability. European Bizums connect. As indicated in CincoDíasBizum and the rest of the European platforms that imitated those free transfer functions easily accessible from mobile phones have finally joined forces. all friends. That was the last obstaclebecause all of them wanted to become the unique and universal Bizum. That would have forced the rest of the platforms to say goodbye to make way for that single platform, but instead what will happen is that the different platforms will be interoperable. The agreement includes 130 million connected users. Thanks to this interoperability project, 130 million EU (and Norwegian) citizens will be able to use this system. Not only that: the interoperable platform will be prepared to accept those from other European countries such as Switzerland or even others from markets not belonging to the euro zone. The key is in SPL. This interoperability can be achieved thanks to the so-called Standard Proxy Lookup (SPL), a “directory” service at the European level managed by the European Payments Council (EPC). This service allows banks to check which IBAN corresponds to each telephone number. Everything runs on the SEPA Instant Transfer infrastructureand thanks to new EU regulations, these transfers will soon be mandatory free or will have the same cost as a standard transfer, eliminating the traditional abusive commissions for immediate transfers. In 2026, personal payments. The technical implementation will begin in the coming months, and it is expected that before the end of the year a Spaniard with Bizum will be able to send money to a German with Wero and vice versa in a transparent and simple way. In theory, the operation of the system will not change for users, who will simply have to enter the recipient’s mobile number, regardless of the EU country, so that the transfer is carried out instantly. Shops in 2027. These personal payments with the European Bizum will end up giving rise to the other great option of the system: payments in electronic stores and points of sale. This option will arrive a little later, in 2027, and will undoubtedly be the great spearhead of these platforms against the two fierce competitors that dominated this segment. Setback for Visa and Mastercard. This agreement allows the European Union to have an internal payment system that will allow it to reduce its dependence on the systems that have been the de facto industry standard for decades, those offered by Visa and Mastercard. And a measure of the banks for the banks. European banks are also strengthening their position regarding the digital euro project that the European Central Bank (ECB) is preparing. This currency will in the future allow European citizens to have deposits in central banks without intervention by private banks. That, of course, took power away from these entities, but with this European Bizum they reinforce their role. Another step towards European digital sovereignty. For decades Europe has delegated all its digital systems to companies, especially from the US, and this project confirms an increasingly strong trend: that of European digital sovereignty. When processing payments within a European banking network, citizens’ consumption data does not go to US servers (as happens when using Visa, Mastercard, Apple or Google). And you can use Bizum without a bank card. This agreement does not prevent the platforms from continuing to evolve and improve on their own. This is what Bizum intends to do, which will launch Bizum Pay this year to pay directly in stores with the current account and without the need for a bank card. This will allow us to avoid dependence on Google Pay or Apple Pay, for example, on our mobile phones. It will first offer this option in shops in Spain, and in 2027, in line with the objective of that interoperable European Bizum, in shops in the EU. In Xataka | The Treasury confirms it: payments for dinner and gifts to your friends through Bizum do not go to the Tax Agency

The European Bizum wants to be working next Christmas, but first a problem must be resolved. One of power sharing

by

“Wow, but if it gives me the option to pay with Bizum, how cool.” That was my expression a few months ago when in an online purchase the online store offered me to pay directly like this. No debit or credit card, no Google Pay. With a Bizum. The instant payment system that is triumphing in Spain is so good that What we want is for it to work further. And that is precisely what the banking entities of the European Union want, who saw a “European Bizum” as a great idea. There’s just one problem. Who will control it. The European Bizum is approaching The European Central Bank he has been fighting for five years for that application that does the same as Bizum but throughout Europe. There was a major power struggle here with two large factions. On the one hand, the consortium Spain-Italy-Portugal. On the other, that of France-Germany-Belgium-Holland, who wanted to impose its own Bizum, called Wero. Fortunately, in recent months we have seen how the positions of both consortiums have become closer and the unification now seems almost definitive. This is what they indicate in five dayswhere they quote “market sources” who talk about the agreement being signed in early 2026. The European Bizum should start operating at the end of next year if everything goes as expected. This system may not be a new application, as requested by the French and German entities, but rather a system that interconnects existing ones. It is a somewhat more confusing solution but also more practical, because users will not have to change apps. For example, a Spanish user will be able to send a Bizum to a German at no cost, and the German will receive that money in his Wero app in a way that is transparent to him. The European banks participating in the negotiations have reached an agreement to establish a new company that will be the owner of this interconnection technology. There was talk of applying certain commissions, “but it was finally rejected in favor of a multilateral network.” Power distribution And there is the new challenge: Who is in charge in this new society? The distribution of power is now the great unknown, and there are several options. On the one hand, each national platform receives practically the same participation. On the other hand, the distribution should be made based on the volume of each country and then corrected. The Bizum model seems like it can also be applied to that pan-European solution. It is interesting to realize that as explained in the economic newspaper, the owners of Bizum are 22 Spanish banks, among which the participation varies: Caixabank: 25% Santander: 21% BBVA: 18% Sabadell: 12% Other minority banks such as Unicaja, Bankinter or Cajamar have lower participations, but Bizum’s statutes establish that no bank can have more than 25% participation. Do we need a digital euro? Europe has been looking for a solution for some time that would allow it to mitigate its dependence on the two great giants of electronic payments: Visa and Mastercard. The European Payments Initiativecreated in 2020 by 16 banking entities, had precisely the objective of creating a European interbank network that competed with these platforms and with others such as PayPal. And little by little it has been proven that Bizum was precisely a great candidate to achieve this. The application, with more than 30 million users in Spain, has not stopped growing in benefits and alliances like the one a year ago they signed with Revolut. There are still other obstacles in the creation of this European Bizum. For example, building a common deposit guarantee fund to deal with large US entities. It does not seem that this is going to be a major impediment to the implementation of the pan-European alternative, and that makes us wonder what happens now with the digital euro. The European Central Bank (ECB) has been designing the design of this digital asset for years. There have also been important movements in that sense, and if the European regulations are approved in 2026, there will be a pilot starting in 2027. The EU seems to want to be ready for a possible first broadcast in 2029. However, that European Bizum will theoretically solve part of what the digital euro wants to achieve, so does it make sense? It is very likelyespecially since the digital euro is a legal tender issued by the ECB. It is not just a way to transfer money, but a digital form of official money itself. Both alternatives can coexist, and this European Bizum may be the best way to promote the use of the digital euro. In Xataka | The Treasury confirms it: payments for dinner and gifts to your friends through Bizum do not go to the Tax Agency

There is so much misinformation with the Treasury and private payments in Bizum that the Treasury has had to come out to deny them

by

In recent days, Bizum has become an unexpected protagonist of the tax debate in Spain as a result of the reform on operations communications that financial institutions must send to the Treasury. Given the confusion generated, the Tax Agency has published an official clarification to clarify what really changes and what does not in the communication of payments made through Bizum. What the Treasury has had to clarify. The Tax Agency has published an explanatory note to stop the idea that Bizum is going to impose massive control of payments between individuals. As explained in his note, there is no change in the taxation of individual users or in the obligation to declare the daily payments that individual users make through Bizum. What does change is the information that banks must send to the Treasury about certain payment systems. Bizum becomes explicitly included along with other means such as credit cards, debit cards or other electronic platforms. But this information obligation does not apply in the same way to all users. The key nuance is who uses Bizum and for what purpose. And that is where the confusion skyrocketed and the private use of the platform was confused with the professional use and supervision of those payments through Bizum. The reform that caused it all. The origin of the controversy is in the regulatory reform that regulates communications between financial entities and the Tax Agency, recently published in the BOE. This text establishes that banks must report all movements made through electronic payment systems when the recipient is a company or professional. That is, Bizum is comparable to other common collection methods in economic activity. If a business, a self-employed person or a company receives payments through Bizum, these movements must be fully communicated to the Treasury, just as occurs with card payments. These payments will be included in your accounting books and tax regulations will be applied to them. like any other paymentand the tax entities will communicate the existence of these payments by identifying the bank or payment accounts through which these charges associated with the company are made. The standard does not introduce a new obligation for businesses, but rather standardizes the treatment of Bizum with other payment systems that were already under that level of control. What happens to private users?. The Treasury clarification is blunt on this point: individual users are left outside the individualized control of each movement when they use Bizum for day-to-day payments: shared dinners, gifts, money refunds or small payments between friends are not communicated in detail to the Tax Agency. There is no new threshold, no obligation to declare each transfer, nor automatic monitoring of daily operations between natural persons. In that sense, Bizum continues to work the same as it has until now for the majority of users. The exemption, however, does not mean carte blanche from a tax point of view. And this is where the second important nuance about the use of Bizum comes in, understood as a payment channel that has already been equated with any other existing payment system. Bizum is only a payment channel. In a own statementBizum wanted to clarify that the exclusion of individual users from automatic reporting does not eliminate their tax obligations. The platform insists that the payment method (Bizum, in this case) does not change the nature of the income. Yeah a user charges a rent by Bizum and does not declare it, it is still taxable income. If you receive a donationmust pay taxes in accordance with the corresponding regulations. And if you use Bizum for a hidden economic activity, the Treasury can demand liability in the same way as if the payment had been made in cash or by transfer. The key is in the concept of payment, not in the payment channel used. Bizum does not inspect or exonerate itself, it simply channels payments. The obligation to declare depends on the origin and purpose of the money. SMEs and microenterprises. By equating Bizum with other payment systems and differentiating between individual users and companies, there is a risk of diluting the limit in cases where the holder of a bank account belongs to the 5463% of sole proprietorship SMEs in which a self-employed professional develops his profession and uses a single checking account to receive his Bizums, both personal and professional. As and as they recommend from Bizum, in these cases, it is essential to identify the specific cause of each payment received through Bizum or, to avoid problems, separate payments from Bizum directed to the professional activity of the personal Bizum into different accounts. In Xataka | Bizum and the Treasury: what changes in the control of transfers after eliminating the 3,000 euro threshold

has left Bizum, dataphones and even ATMs out of the game

by

The cloud of Amazon Web Services has suffered a crash in one of its data centers that is affected by a multitude of services worldwide. Alexa, Fortnite, Perplexity, Canva, Roblox… the list is enormous, but it doesn’t stop there. The fall is also making it impossible to pay with a credit card in many stores, through Bizum or even to withdraw money from the ATM. Dataphones. The consequences of the fall of Amazon Web Services are preventing both physical and online purchases. Many businesses are experiencing problems with dataphones because The fall has affected Redsyswhich is the main POS platform in Spain. It is also used on many websites, so it is affecting online payments on many websites such as Tickermaster. Nor take money. Given the problem of dataphones, many people have gone to their bank for cash to be able to pay. This is what our colleague Alberto did, only to find that the ATMs at his bank (BBVA) were not working either. It is not the only bank affected, there have also been failures in ATMs at Unicaja, Bankinter and other entities. Bizum. The Bizum payment service also does not work for many users. At Xataka we have verified that it fails in Sabadell, BBVA, Santander, Revolut and in X there are more users reporting bugs. When the dataphones failed, those who did not have cash tried to pay through Bizum but found that it did not work either. In addition, some banking apps are failing, so in many cases it is not even possible to check if Bizum works. A curiosity: the Santander app gives an error when entering with FaceID on an iPhone, but it let us enter using the code. Irregular. It has not affected everyone or all banks equally. Some ATMs have already been restored and there have been stores where it has been possible to pay without problem or after a couple of attempts, why? Sources from the banking sector have confirmed to Xataka that the AWS failure is being restored, but it takes time for the changes to reach the entire network. In the same way that the solution takes time to deploy, the error did not spread at the same speed, which is why both the impact and the subsequent restoration are being irregular. In development…

In Seville they are cloning voices with AI to beg for money for Bizum

by

AI has been able to clone almost perfect voices. What we did not expect is that these types of tools began to be used to cheat a Sevillian brotherhood. The event. The Archbishopric of Seville He has given the alarm to his brotherhoods. The reason: An scam attempt at the Andalusian level in which cloned voices are starting to try to impersonate the bishops. One of the brotherhoods of the capital recently received a call imitating the voice of Monsignor Teodoro Muñoz, one of the auxiliary bishops. The request. In Xataka we have been able to talk to the brotherhood, and confirm that the request was the most rocambolesco. He called the brotherhood posing as the bishop. A certain amount of money was requested through Bizum. The petition was justified to pay a succession tax necessary for the Brotherhood to collect an inheritance The voice. As the brotherhood explains, the voice was “a practically perfect clone.” In addition, it was not a voice recording, the interlocutor was talking to the auxiliary bishop until he hung after his refusal to access the required payment. It is not an isolated case. In February 2024, Jaén today echoed of an identical event. A fortnight of convents of the province received at the beginning of the year called in which he claimed to be the bishop, also requiring an economic amount in this case to help the bishopric. The new Timo del CEO. Hyperrealist scams are not new. In fact, We have spent more than four years talking about them. The Zendal Pharmaceutical Group was the victim of a scam worth 9 million euros in 2020. In this case there was not even an implementation of AI: someone passed through the head of the company by email requesting high -value transfers. With the rise of artificial intelligence tools, Scams with cloned voices are increasingly frequent. These tools allow not only to create recordings with the simulated voice, but to imitate it in real time, making the even more realistic call. Suspect, always suspect. Differentiate what is AI and what is not increasingly complicatedso the biggest protective factor will always be suspicion. If money is requested. If personal data is requested. If it does not fit the least. Hanging. Image | Archdiocese of Seville and Xataka In Xataka | “People want something more intimate and emotional”: Christian baptisms have found relief in Spain, civil christening

Europe fails to find the perfect solution for cross -border payments. Bizum and Banco Santander have just put it on a tray

by

Santander has become the first Spanish bank that allows its customers Send Bizum to other European countries. It is something that is achieved thanks to the interoperability between Bizum, Bancomat and MB Waya connection that according to the bank will connect 50 million users and 186 financial entities. It is a first step waiting for a unique pawous solution for which no agreement is reached. The first in Spain. Banco Santander has formalized the possibility of sending money through Bizum in a cross -border way. The agreement has been necessary between different payment solutions such as Bizum (Spain), Bancomat (Italy) and Mbway (Portugal), being limited instant payments to these two countries, for the moment. After performing the corresponding successful pilot tests, the clients of this bank will be the first to be able to pay outside Spain. The method will be the usual: we will only have to write the mobile number of the user to which we want to send the payment, and this will be carried out immediately and without commissions. It will not be alone. Santander has been the first to move token, but the possibility of sending Bizum out of Spain will be a standard before summer. Abanca, OpenBank, Caixabank, BBVA and Banco Sabadell are advancing in the implementation of this service, planned for the second quarter of 2025. It has not been thanks to Europe. While Europe Follow in search of a unique solutionthe private company moves record. Cross -border payments are possible thanks to the European Initiative (European Payments Alliance), a joint project initiated by Bizum and followed by both Bancomat and MB Way, with the aim of adopting instant transfers paneuropeas using existing infrastructure. In other words, it has been necessary for those responsible for the platforms to agree, in the absence of a European alternative that encompasses. The European Bizum. The European Central Bank has been trying to advance in a system of instant payments to interconnect the different member countries. But he doesn’t get it. During the last two years we have seen progress as Free transfers in Europe, Tests with digital purseand brushstrokes on a “European Payment Initiative” which has barely advanced since 2022. Countries like Spain They make 95% of immediate payments with Bizumbut this is not the only name that sounds as a candidate for possible means for European payments. There are those who try strongly. Solutions such as Bizum, Bancomat, BM Way or Swish were born as responses to the national need to be able to pay freely and free. The problem for the EU? None have been thought from scratch as a single payment solution. This is where solutions such as Weroa proposal towards “a unique payment solution, all in one, instantaneous and paneuropea, capable of covering over time all cases of payment that consumers and professionals require.” Banks such as German and French They are already promoting this servicenot yet compatible with solutions like Bizum. Nothing clear. The ECB points out that “instead of combining strength and sharing resources to develop paneuropeas solutions, national communities have often preferred to preserve the legacy of the investments made in the past”, an attack on models such as Bizum and a clear look at proposals such as Wero. With many delays and few proposals on the table, the road to a “European bizum” continues to draw distant. But, meanwhile, in Spain we will not take to pay with virtually any bank outside our borders. In Xataka | Bizum and Finance: What changes in transfers control after eliminating the threshold of 3,000 euros

A man stayed a 20 -euro bizum sent by mistake. The judge has fined her and has come out ten times more expensive

by

With 28 million active users, Bizum is the most used system in Spain for payments among users. We send and receive a lot of money through Bizum and make an mistake when typeing the number we want to send money is something that can happen with relative ease. If we are lucky, they may return it to us, but what happens if who is on the other side decides to stay the money? Now we know. Staying a bizum sent by mistake is very expensive. As we said, making a mistake to type the number to which we want to send a bizum can be quite easy and it is just what happened to a neighbor of Benavente, as they say in Zamora’s opinion. The person who received the 20 euros did not return the amount and the woman decided to denounce him to the authorities. The Provincial Court of Zamora has proved him right and has condemned the receiver of the transfer to return the 20 euros, in addition to paying the judicial coasts and a fine of 180 euros for a slight crime of improper appropriation. More than ten times the original amount. The Civil Code says. The denounced has resorted to the sentence alleging lack of evidence and presumption of innocence, but the judge has confirmed it and considers that the woman had not consented to the transfer. This would apply not only to Bizum, but to transfers and any other payment received by error. He Article 1895 of the Civil Code It is clear, it must always be returned: When something that was not entitled to collect is received, and that by mistake it has been improperly delivered, the obligation to restore it arises. There is jurisprudence. There have been more cases that have reached the courts for transfers made by error, such as this one of an Alicante businessman who faces Three years in jail for not returning a payment of 341,000 That was done by mistake. EITHER This 2015 sentence who condemned a woman for staying with 25,900 euros of the pension plan of her ex -husband, the result of an error of the bank when rescuing the money. Bizum in figures. Bizum It has become the standard of immediate payments in Spain. Arrived in 2016 as part of an initiative among various banking entities, although it was not until 2018 when It extended and began to grow. It currently has 28 million users and it is expected to reach 30 throughout the year. In 2024 an average of 3 million operations were made per day. The record was the past Black Friday (November 29, 2024), with 4.8 million operations. Or what is the same: 55 bizums per second. In total, in 2024 1,093 million operations were made worth 44,206 million euros. We do not know the number of erroneous operations when sending money, but with these numbers it is logical that they are increasing. Bizum grows, legal doubts too. In parallel to this growth, unknowns have also been increasing from the legal and legal point of view. Many users wonder What income or payments should be declared to the Treasury. We know that it is not necessary to declare payments between friends and family, although the freelancers who use it to collect, the income that generate economic profitability as rentals or if the total amount adds more than 10,000 euros per year should do. Doubts have also emerged about whether something that has eliminated the Threshold of 3,000 euros in the control of transfers by the Treasury. In this case, if high amounts are received through Bizum, the Treasury may investigate it, just as they would do if it were a transfer or a metallic income. Little by little, light is shed and it is clear that, at the legal level, Bizum is one more method to move money and apply the same rules as any type of income In Xataka | Timo of the false bizum by mistake: how it works and how to avoid this scam

Paying the reeds with Bizum on the TPV is already possible in Spain. BBVA is responsible

by

BBVA will be the first bank of Spain to integrate Bizum As a payment method in TPV systems. Until now, the point of sale terminals served as an intermediary between physical trade and consumer credit/debit card. With the new BBVA integration, it will be possible to use these devices as applications generators. How will it work. Those shops attached to a Android TPV With the BBVA appolences, they will be able to send payment requests to customers on their mobile phones. Once this has provided the phone number to the trade and sent the application, the transaction can be completed in a simple way. The client will receive a notification on his phone to be able to pay immediately and the trade can confirm the status of the operation in real time. Not only will it serve to make the payment: returns can also be made by Bizum. Where will it work. Any business with an Android TPV running under the service of BBVA can use this system of payments and returns through Bizum. There are no public data about how many TPV they work adhered to BBVA in Spain, but we do know that this is the third Spanish bankadding more than eight million customers at the end of 2024. A dart for the rest of the banks. Bizum is the preferred method of Spaniards when making instant payments. So much that 95% of them are carried out through this service. That a business allows payments BBVA is away from the figures of Caixabank and Santander in number of clients, but this movement is a great incentive for small and large shops. The key will be how long the two great Spanish banks will take to follow their steps. Our privacy. A key point when integrating Bizum into the TPV is that, those businesses attached to this payment system must be rigorous with the General Data Protection Law (LGPD). The telephone number is considered personal data according to this regulation, and when introducing it to the TPV, it would be treatment of it. Only the number can be used to make the payment, being prohibited to perform any commercial treatment with it without prior consent. It must also be specially protected to avoid fraud and impersonation of identity. Bizum is no longer a tool among colleagues. Bizum was born in 2016 as A tool oriented to daily payments. In 2019, it began to open its doors to electronic shops, and 2025 is starting as one of its best years. At the beginning of the week we counted How is the pulse of the European Union winningmanaging to expand payments between borders. With integration in TPVS, in addition to web pages, Bizum becomes a complete alternative to card payment. Image | BBVA In Xataka | The BBVA will allow its customers to invest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. But he doesn’t want to know anything about the matter

The European Central Bank has been fighting for five years to literally create a “European Bizum”. Now has taken a key step

by

Europe wants to have its own instant payments system. That would allow the dependence of the great market leaders, Visa and Mastercard, and strengthened the European financial ecosystem. And the plan begins to take shape with Bizum as a great protagonist. Bizum is looking for allies. As they point out In Electomistthe idea is to unify the payment systems that are currently working in the various countries of the European Union. Bizum, protagonist in Spain, has its twin schemes with Bancomat Pay in Italy and Sibs in Portugal. All of them now pose to be interconnected with a specially relevant reference. Wero, the German Bizum. The Instant Payment System It has been since summer 2024 being the great alternative in France (where they used Paylib), Germany (Giropay), Belgium and Luxembourg (Payconiq) and Holland (ideal). This project of the European Payments Initiative (EPI) is taking shape, and it can precisely be the other great component of that fusion of instant payment systems in Europe. The ECB wants a European bizum. Sources close to negotiations indicate that the project is on the table. To get ahead, we would have that giant of the instant payments that for years has tried to boost the European Central Bank (ECB). A long -sought project. Five years ago the European Commission He started looking that “European bizum” with the launch of the aforementioned EPI. In the project 16 great banks of Spain, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands participated. A year later the figure amounted to 31 entities. The objective, offer a unified payment solution with a payment card and a digital purse. But that has gone through problems. The initiative was promising, but the slowness of its implementation and the excessive budget necessary to achieve this caused several banks to withdraw from the project. As indicated in the economist, the Spanish bank had to contribute 300 million to the initiative, something debatable if we consider that Bizum has existed since 2015 and has a massive acceptance. Spain, Portugal and Italy teach the way. Last year Bizum, Sibs and Bancomat Pay began working on connecting their platforms and making possible instant payments between these countries in the same conditions as to the national scale. It was also the result of the Bizum Union to the European Association of Mobile Payment Systems (EMPSA), which was the consortium of southern Europe. That alliance brings together 43 million users, of which 28 belong to the Spanish system. Germany, France and Belgium were looking for something similar. Something similar happened with the EPI and Wero, which interconnected the mobile payment systems of Germany, France or Belgium and wanted to become the European Payment System. Now both consortiums have approached positions and according to the sources mentioned there are options to end working on an interconnection of all systems. This looks good. It is not clear if the conversations will end with a single European system – will Bizum be called? Wero? – Or if at the moment we will work on that interconnection of all these applications separately, but of course these efforts can be the principle of something great and important for the European panorama of instant payments. It is already known. Union is strength. In Xataka | The arrival of the digital euro is inevitable: let’s say goodbye to anonymity

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.