What MPE Berlin revealed about the future of A2A payments in Europe

That was one of the clearest takeaways from MPE Berlin, where Panagiotis Kriaris, Director and Head of Business & Corporate Development at Unzer, moderated a panel featuring Thomas Grabner of FSS International, Nilixa Devlukia, CEO of Payments Solved, Stefan Hölscher, Lead Expert Payments at Otto Group, Eric Tak, Head of Division, Digital Euro – Product Proposition at the European Central Bank, Ian Morrin, Head of Payments and Platforms at Tink, and Daniel Vieira, Chief Product Officer at PayPal.

The discussion centred on a big question: can Europe finally turn the promise of account-to-account payments into something that works at scale?

Because right now, the ambition is there. The options are there. The noise is definitely there. But the winning formula still is not.

On paper, Europe looks busy. Open banking. Local schemes. Wero. The Digital Euro. Plenty of movement, plenty of ideas, plenty of players.

But that is also the problem.

Instead of one clear, compelling story for merchants and consumers, Europe has created a fragmented A2A landscape that can feel harder to navigate than the problem it is trying to solve. Thomas made the case for a stronger European alternative to international card dominance, tying the debate to cost, resilience and sovereignty. It was a convincing argument.

But a strategic need does not automatically create customer demand.

And that is where the real challenge begins.

For all the conversation around infrastructure, the panel kept returning to a simpler truth: payments live or die by trust and ease.

Daniel was clear on this point. A2A is not new. What is changing is how providers package access to bank rails and bring that to market. But most consumers do not care about the rails underneath. They care whether it feels safe, familiar and easy to complete.

That is why user experience is still doing the heavy lifting.

Stefan brought that into sharp focus from a German market perspective. When merchants are looking at multiple A2A options, each with different mechanics, branding and journeys, clarity becomes critical. If the proposition feels messy, adoption slows. If it feels unfamiliar, trust drops.

In payments, convenience usually wins. Even when cheaper alternatives exist.

One of the strongest points in the discussion came through Nilixa’s international lens.

Europe often looks at success stories like PIX in Brazil or UPI in India and asks how to recreate them. But those models were built in very different conditions. They were pushed by stronger mandates, clearer national goals and more unified execution.

Europe is trying to do something harder: align multiple markets, regulators, banks and commercial incentives at once.

That means the answer is not just better technology. It is a better commercial model.

Until banks, merchants and consumers all have a clear reason to adopt A2A, scale will stay frustratingly out of reach.

Eric positioned the Digital Euro as part of that answer, not as a silver bullet, but as a layer of public infrastructure designed to strengthen the wider ecosystem.

His argument was sensible: Europe does not need endless overlap. It needs fewer, stronger options that can actually scale. In that world, the Digital Euro could help fill important gaps around inclusion, acceptance, resilience and offline payments.

It is not the flashiest proposition in the room. But that may be precisely the point.

Ian made the case for pragmatism. Different countries behave differently. Different use cases call for different journeys. Sweden is not Germany. Germany is not the UK.

So perhaps Europe does not end up with one dominant A2A model after all. Perhaps it ends up with several.

That can still work. But only if those options become simpler, clearer and much easier to trust.

It can.

The real question is whether Europe can make A2A feel better than the alternatives people already know.

That means less complexity. Better branding. Smarter incentives. Stronger merchant education. And a user experience that does not ask customers to think too hard.

Because until A2A becomes the easier choice, its big promise will stay exactly where it is now: full of potential, but still waiting for lift-off.