European Payments Council Launches, Ethiopia Joins PAPSS

October proved to be action-packed for the global payments sector.

A group of European payments businesses have joined forces to launch a new industry body, the Local Payments Council for Agentic Commerce, aimed at collaboratively developing an industry standard for agentic commerce.

The founding members of the council include PPRO, a UK-based paytech; BLIK, a Polish mobile payment system; Bancontact, a Belgian paytech; European Payments Initiative (EPI), a Belgium-headquartered joint initiative behind the pan-European payment system Wero; and DIAS, the national payment clearing house in Greece.

The Local Payments Council for Agentic Commerce will analyse local payment systems that are in place across Europe and how they can be integrated with AI agents responsibly.

Ethiopia Joins Pan-African Payment Network

The National Bank of Ethiopia has joined the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) network.

PAPSS was launched in 2022 by Egypt-based Afreximbank with the purpose of streamlining cross-border payments between countries across Africa. Since its establishment, PAPSS has now grown to connect 29 African countries, enabling more than 190 commercial banks and fintechs to transact across the continent.

Commenting on the milestone, Dr Eyob Tekalign, governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia, says: “Ethiopia’s integration into the PAPSS network represents an important step in our continued efforts to modernise our financial system and deepen our economic connections with the rest of Africa. It creates new opportunities for Ethiopian financial institutions and businesses to participate more actively in cross-border payments and intra-African trade.”

Sezzle Eyes National Bank Charter

Philippines-based Asia United Bank (AUB) has tapped issuer-processor Paymentology to power its digital payments platform.

Paymentology’s cloud-native tech will be integrated into AUB’s payments ecosystem, supporting the bank’s mobile banking services, QR Ph capabilities, digital transfer networks, and flagship e-wallet, HelloMoney, which enables customers to pay using QR codes across 60 countries, including Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong SAR, and Singapore.

The vendor will also work with AUB to help the bank launch new products as the number of households in the Philippines completing digital financial transactions rises from 53% to 62% year on year.

Asia United Bank Partners with Paymentology

The National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) has inked a new partnership with UK-based paytech TerraPay to expand its international payments network and scale its cross-border capabilities.

Through the partnership, NBB says that it will “leverage TerraPay’s digital infrastructure to extend its international reach, simplify cross-border payout operations, and enable access to a broader range of payment destinations”.

The bank adds that utilising TerraPay’s tech “significantly reduces the complexity of direct integrations while enabling faster access to new markets and payout corridors”.

Further elaborating on this, Ani Sane, co-founder and chief business officer at TerraPay, says: “Banks want to extend their international payment reach without having to build and maintain separate connections into every market, wallet, and local payment system.”

By combining TerraPay’s global payout network with Swift connectivity, NBB can use its existing banking infrastructure to access more than 12 billion bank accounts, digital wallets, and local payment systems through a single global network,” Sane adds.