The European Payments Council has welcomed a new standard designed to bring consistency to QR code–based payments and support future interoperability across European markets.
The European Payments Council (EPC) has hailed the publication of EN 18184:2025, a new QR-code standard developed by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), as a major step toward harmonising mobile‑initiated payments across Europe.
The standard is the result of a multi‑year initiative launched by the European Retail Payments Board (ERPB) – chaired by the European Central Bank (ECB) – and developed in collaboration with the European Commission’s DG‑FISMA.
Its goal is to create a common technical framework for QR codes used in payment initiation, ensuring that any compliant app or payment service provider can interpret the data in a consistent way.
Giorgio Andreoli, director general of the EPC, said the new standard was would act as a an important “pre-condition for QR-code interoperability in the European acceptance network”.
What the new standard actually does
EN 18184:2025 defines how payment information must be encoded within a QR code, including the structure, mandatory data fields, and formatting rules.
It is designed to support instant credit transfers, whether the QR code is displayed by a merchant at checkout or generated by a payer’s device.
By establishing a single, interoperable format, the standard aims to reduce fragmentation between national QR schemes, simplify merchant acceptance, and lay the groundwork for cross‑border usability.
The EPC said the publication provides a “technical foundation” for future European QR‑based payment solutions.
QR-code payments: global momentum, European fragmentation
QR codes have become a dominant payment interface in several global markets. In China, they underpin the mass adoption of Alipay and WeChat Pay. India’s UPI QR network has scaled to millions of merchants, while markets across Southeast Asia, Brazil, and the Middle East have adopted national QR standards to drive low‑cost digital payments.
Europe, by contrast, has seen patchwork adoption. Several countries – including Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the Nordics – have developed successful domestic QR solutions, but these systems are not interoperable across borders. Merchants and PSPs often face multiple formats, and consumers cannot rely on a single QR experience across the EU.
The new CEN standard is intended to address this fragmentation by offering a pan‑European technical baseline that schemes and providers can build on.
With the standard now officially available, PSPs, vendors, and scheme operators are expected to begin assessing implementation pathways. Industry adoption will determine how quickly the standard translates into real‑world interoperability, particularly as the EU continues to push for broader instant payments usage.
