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European banks could launch a company in October that would create the framework for a card scheme designed to rival MasterCard Worldwide and Visa Inc., according to comments this week from a Deutsche Bank AG executive. "With the utmost probability, a project company will be founded in October to bring forward the Monnet initiative," Hermann-Josef Lamberti, the bank's chief operating officer, said Wednesday at a central bank conference in Frankfurt. Lamberti was referring to a proposed debit card scheme reportedly also backed by France-based Societe Generale and other German and French financial institutions, none of which offered immediate comment. "Monnet is an investment in innovation and in the independency of the European banks," Lamberti said in his remarks, a copy of which a Deutsche Bank spokesperson provided to CardLine Global. The creation of the Monnet card scheme, named for a 20th-century French economist who backed European unity, would come amid efforts to establish the Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA, a common market for electronic payments that backers envision to include at least 30 countries. The creation also could come amid complaints about the fees and rates attached to cards carrying the brands of Visa and MasterCard, two firms that European regulators have accused of anticompetitive practices. Europe has at least 18 different card schemes, the Deutsche Bank spokesperson tells CardLine Global. "Thus Monnet is to be seen as an alternative where European banks may combine their still-fragmented strength rather than leaving this huge European market to others," the Deutsche Bank spokesperson says, referring mainly to MasterCard's Maestro and Visa's V Pay debit brands. More than 300 million European payment cards carry the Maestro brand, according to figures released by MasterCard in May. Banks have issued more than 1 million V Pay cards, though Visa says issuers have "committed" to at least 40 million cards. "A duopoly of the two international card companies is an unsatisfying vision for both political and economic reasons for us in Europe," Hans Georg Fabritius, a board member of Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, reportedly also said at the conference in Frankfurt, adding he found the Monnet concept "promising." Meanwhile, another European banking official this week offered fresh encouragement for a European-centered card scheme. Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, a member of the European Central Bank's executive board, said during a speech that consumers and merchants will benefit from more payments competition. "The [bank] appreciates, therefore, the different initiatives that have a European card scheme as their destination and welcomes the travel preparations made by them," she added. A spokesperson for the European Central Bank declined to comment specifically on any proposed European card scheme because the bank is "neutral."
