Greece's IRIS Payments system has expanded beyond the domestic market, enabling instant cross-border money transfers to selected European countries using the recipient's mobile phone number. The service became available at the end of June 2026 through EuroPA, the European Payments Alliance.
Initial rollout across five countries
In its first phase, IRIS connects Greece with equivalent payment systems in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Andorra. The service currently applies only to person-to-person transfers between individuals, allowing users to send money to registered users of participating European payment services without entering an IBAN. EuroPA links national account-to-account instant payment systems, including IRIS in Greece, Bizum in Spain, MB WAY in Portugal, and BANCOMAT Pay in Italy.
According to DIAS, Greece's national interbank payment clearing institution, the first phase covers 57.3 million citizens across five countries. The network is expected to expand to more than 176 million citizens across eighteen European countries by the end of 2026. Interoperability for payments at online and physical retail stores is planned for 2027; for now, the service remains limited to transfers between individuals, with the same transfer limits that apply within the Greek market: up to EUR 1,000 per day and EUR 5,000 per month.
Domestic growth preceding the expansion
The European expansion follows a year of increased use of instant payments within Greece. In 2025, 122.1 million instant payments were processed, an increase of 72.8% compared with 2024, with instant payments accounting for 27% of credit transfers. In December 2025, the system recorded a monthly high of 15.4 million instant payments, reaching a peak of 235 transactions per second on 14 December 2025.
IRIS P2P, the service used for transfers between individuals, recorded 111.4 million transactions in 2025, with registered users reaching 4.3 million. Use among professionals also increased, with transactions involving freelancers and sole proprietors rising by 197% compared with 2024, and 583,445 professionals having activated IRIS. In retail and e-commerce, IRIS was available across approximately 1.2 million point-of-sale (POS) terminals and 70,000 e-shops, with transactions through IRIS Commerce increasing by 70.8%. According to DIAS, users aged 25 to 54 represent the most active demographic group, and lawyers account for the largest number of professional activations, although psychologists record higher actual usage of the service.
Limited adoption at physical points of sale
Since 1 December 2025, IRIS has been available at physical stores in Greece through POS terminals, with no transaction limit applied to retail payments. DIAS has described Greece as the first country in Europe with universal acceptance of account-to-account instant payments at points of sale. However, Greece's Economy and Finance Minister, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, said IRIS transactions in physical stores remain low, at around 55,000 per month. According to the minister, wider adoption would require greater visibility of IRIS at checkout points, better consumer awareness, stronger merchant incentives, and reward mechanisms comparable to cashback programmes offered by card providers. He also referred to the need for a contactless payment experience using near-field communication (NFC) technology, comparable to Apple Pay or Google Pay.
Broader implications for European payments interoperability
The expansion of IRIS into cross-border transfers reflects a wider effort among European payment providers to increase interoperability of instant account-to-account payments across national markets. Cross-border payments at online and physical stores remain unavailable for now. Further progress is expected to depend on the participation of additional banks and payment providers, as well as consumer adoption outside Greece, while domestically, the main challenge remains shifting IRIS usage from technical availability toward regular use in everyday purchases.
