Equens, the former Interpay and TAI, was in the news today. A brief article in De Telegraaf mentions that Equens will hook up the German and Dutch POS-switching services directly, rather than via the international card networks. This is a trial now, but may become market reality later. A number of similar trials from Germany to Italy and Spain are also running.
For Equens this is a logical move as it has German and Dutch banks as its customer and it may want to use a single technology/protocol rather than continue operating two similar ones. But also the Commission and ECB may be happy. The linking of domestic POS-networks, which started out as the Berlin Gruppe, has their warm support (or anything else for that matter which could countervail the 'US-oriented' Visa and Mastercard).
