Payment sovereignty is now a design choice, and every country is making it differently

Central banks assert control

Geopolitical developments and technological innovations are transforming domestic and international payment and market infrastructures, according to the Banque de France. The bank says it intends to maintain strategic control over the functioning and evolution of the euro's payment and settlement infrastructure, and that it is mandated to ensure the safety and efficiency of clearing and settlement systems. Control is stated as a goal in its own right, not as a side effect of any single project. m:…7159

The bank says it is currently focused on the impact of distributed-ledger-based infrastructures supporting tokenized financial markets, and aims to ensure that tokenization efficiency benefits do not negatively affect monetary and financial stability. Central banks must adapt how they implement policy to accommodate technological change without changing its substance, the bank says. m:…7159

Iceland builds its own rails

Iceland shows why a central bank would want that control. The Central Bank of Iceland describes the country's payment system as fast, efficient and highly digital, but payments for goods and services are made almost exclusively via Visa and Mastercard, domestic rails for debit card transactions have been replaced by foreign rails, and interbank payments are routed through a system from a foreign vendor. Cash usage is very low, so there is no fallback if the digital rails fail. m:…5949

The bank says Iceland's payment system depends on a small number of providers and continuous digital connectivity, and its external connectivity depends heavily on subsea cables. It is strengthening redundancy through satellite backup and additional cable capacity, and established a financial-infrastructure incident centre earlier in 2026. m:…5949

The bank says it is facilitating the creation of a shared account-to-account payment scheme and has started a public procurement process for a request-to-pay core solution. It plans to participate in the Eurosystem's TIPS service, targeting readiness in the second half of 2028, and is implementing DORA in Icelandic law. Iceland is not leaving international systems; it is adding a domestic layer it controls and a European instant-payment connection alongside it. m:…5949

The gap SEPA still has to close

SEPA facilitates seamless cross-border payments across 41 European countries, according to the European Central Bank. Yet fewer than 40% of consumers in the surveyed south-eastern European countries report having heard of SEPA, and about one-third of remittance recipients across six south-eastern European countries receive money in cash via relatives or friends. A system can exist across 41 countries and still be unknown to the people who would benefit most from it. m:…2748

The stakes are measured in fees. Bulgaria's annual remittance inflows amount to almost 3 billion euro, and Albania's exceed 2.5 billion euro, about 8.4% of its GDP, the ECB says. Cash-to-cash remittance transfers typically incur fees of 6% to 12%, against 1.5% to 4.5% for digital non-bank transfers. m:…2748

Awareness is uneven: consumers with tertiary education are about 17 percentage points more likely to have heard of SEPA than those with only primary education, the ECB says. Bosnia and Herzegovina officially applied for SEPA membership in August 2026. m:…2748

Supervision and the private spread

Serbia shows the supervisory side of sovereignty. The National Bank of Serbia's Executive Board revoked the e-money issuance and payment services licence of ALTA GROUP DOO BEOGRAD on November 2, 2026, as an automatic consequence of the revocation of the operating licence of ALTA banka a.d. Beograd. The company had failed to meet prescribed requirements regarding good business reputation, the bank says. m:…5560

The bank says it is taking measures to ensure the protection of payment service users' funds and the settlement of the company's obligations, that users can continue to use services through other financial institutions in Serbia, and that debtors of the company are not released from their obligations. Revoking a licence while protecting users' funds is the practical test of control: the state can remove a player without breaking the payments people rely on. m:…5560

Private options are spreading at the same time. Campspace selected Nuvei for Platforms as its marketplace payments partner, Nuvei says, after needing new payment infrastructure to manage funds between guests and hosts. The marketplace offers 13,000 outdoor spaces across more than 30 European countries, uses automated split payouts to distribute funds to hosts, and relies on Nuvei for host onboarding and identity checks. m:…6716

Kraken says it enabled trading and funding for EURCV on November 3, 2026, with deposits accepted only into networks supported by Kraken. A new token listing on a major exchange is a small event on its own, but placed next to Iceland's scheme and the Banque de France's strategy, it shows the other side of the design choice: private rails keep multiplying while central banks build their own. m:…7629

What the design choice suggests

This suggests sovereignty in payments is now a set of design decisions: which rails a country controls, which it rents from foreign providers, and how much it costs ordinary people when the answer is unclear. France wants strategic control of the euro's infrastructure, Iceland is building a domestic scheme while joining a European instant-payment service, and SEPA's reach still stops short of the households paying the highest remittance fees. m:…7159 m:…5949 m:…2748

The unresolved part is whether the two tracks converge. Central banks are building controlled rails and enforcing the rules on private players, while marketplaces and exchanges keep adding private options of their own. The evidence in this edition does not show a settlement between them, only that both are moving at once, and that the households and businesses in between will live with whichever combination results. m:…5560 m:…6716