Spain’s third-largest lender CaixaBank has announced that it reached nine million registered Bizum customers at the end of June.

Bizum is a Spanish instant mobile payments system jointly launched in 2016 by 27 banking groups in the country.

The system facilitates immediate SEPA instant transfers and digital identification via mobile phone.

According to CaixaBank, it is the leading provider of the payment system in Spain, with a market share over more than 30 per cent.

At the bank, users sent over 170 million Bizum payments in the first half of the year, while online purchases grew by 70 per cent.

Across the banking groups that offer the service, there are over 27.5 million users, 70,000 affiliated businesses, and 11,000 donation codes.

In 2024, the Spanish population made more than 900 million instant transfers through Bizum, representing more than the 50 per cent off transfers.

"CaixaBank has strengthened its commitment to Bizum with the launch of new features designed to facilitate digital payments in different areas such as the payment of fees and taxes on public platforms, and with optimisation of the online shopping process, seeking a more agile, intuitive and frictionless user experience," said the bank.

The figures come as the bank continues on its international expansion, with users able to send and receive money in Portugal and Italy.

The move forms part of a new European Payments Initiative (EuroPA) project designed to make cross-border payments as simple as domestic payments.

EuroPA is an alliance comprising Bancomat, Bizum, MB WAY (SIBS) and Vipps MobilePay.

In June, it announced it was partnering with the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a scheme backed by 16 major European banks and payment service providers to develop a unified digital wallet called Wero for European consumers.

The partnership will involve both organisations studying a comprehensive payment solution covering all transaction types, including person-to-person payments and commercial transactions both online and in-store across Europe.

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