In a fairly concise document, the ECB updates the Eurosystem's retail payments strategy, the latest version of which dates back to 2020.

This strategy focuses on four key areas:

- Encourage the emergence of pan-European point-of-sale payment solutions. To this end, the ECB supports the EPI initiative.
- Introduce Euro Digital.
- Strengthen SEPA by imposing the functionalities required for large-scale use of instant transfers, and also by combating IBAN discrimination for cross-border payments.
- Facilitate instant payments between the Euro and other currencies through a One Leg Out Instant Credit Transfer (OCT Inst) scheme.

This strategy also sets objectives for the ecosystem:

- Improve the resilience of retail payments, for example through fallback solutions in the event of infrastructure failure (fallback on SCT Inst in the event of card failure).
- Encourage innovation and digitalization in the payments field, on the one hand by enabling PSPs to have direct access to payment infrastructures, and on the other by promoting the use of digital identity.
- Reduce the environmental footprint of payments.

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