US President Donald Trump is arguably one of the most consequential political figures shaping the global payments narrative today. His administration’s overt support for digital assets has accelerated regulatory clarity and institutional engagement in the US crypto market. This resulted in stablecoins facilitating more than $30tn in transaction volume in 2025. Although much of this reflects trading or treasury flows, rather than consumer payments, it nonetheless signals the scale at which alternative settlement mechanisms are developing.
At the same time, US foreign policy and the increasing use of financial sanctions have accelerated discussions across parts of the Global South around trade settlement diversification and partial dedollarisation.
GlobalData Payment Cards Analytics
With the start of 2026, Europe’s payment sovereignty is once again high on the agenda, as European and UK banks point to increasing geopolitical and operational risks, in light of the continent’s structural reliance on US-based card networks, primarily Visa and Mastercard. GlobalData’s Payment Cards Analytics shows that 42% of total European card payments’ value was processed by Visa and Mastercard in 2025. However, zooming in on the UK and eurozone presents a more concentrated picture of dependence.
With no scaled domestic card scheme, the American duopoly accounts for 98% of total UK card payments value. In February 2026, major banks began discussions over alternative contingency solutions following resilience and concentration risk warnings from the Bank of England.
Nonetheless, banks are likely to continue working with Visa and Mastercard on supplementary infrastructure, routing optionality, and interoperability measures, rather than attempting to build an entirely new national scheme from scratch. This reflects not only the UK’s long-standing infrastructural reliance, but also the absence of a widely adopted national mobile wallet solution comparable to those widely used in other parts of the world.
Mastercard, Visa combined market share doubles in eurozone
Europe presents a more mixed picture; leaving the market more fragmented than its level of economic integration would suggest. Visa and Mastercard processed 47% of the eurozone’s card payment value in 2025, with 13 out of 19 countries being highly reliant on these two providers with at least 96% of their card transaction values, according to GlobalData’s Payment Cards Analytics. The duopoly’s combined market share in the eurozone has doubled since 2010; further intensifying concerns over long-term dependency on foreign providers, even as it has improved cross-border acceptance and operational standardisation.
Key exceptions that operate dominant local card solutions are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, but these individual systems are not interoperable which poses a key issue for the most interconnected continent’s future payments.
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By GlobalDataTwo potential solutions have emerged to address European payments fragmentation and dependence, albeit with gradual progress. In a recent announcement, EU lawmakers agreed on key design elements of the digital euro, including both online and offline functionality. However, rollout is not expected before 2029 and consumer interest remains limited for now, particularly in the absence of clearly differentiated use cases versus existing private sector solutions.
Meanwhile, by February 2026, the European Payments Initiative’s Wero wallet had reached a combined 50 million users across its initial markets. With a mission to unite payments that are still considered as cross-border transactions, even though they use a common currency, Wero aims to partner with established local wallets and payment solutions to integrate under one platform.
GlobalData Financial Services Consumer Survey
As GlobalData’s Financial Services Consumer Survey confirms each year, habit and convenience are the two main drivers of payment tool choice. It is now down to whether the digital euro or the Wero wallet will be able to break consumer habits and offer newfound convenience in these alternative solutions, before a potential payment system disruption from either the East or West.
Blandina Szalay is an analyst, banking & payments, GlobalData
