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A European Payment Scheme

European payments
for everyone

Raha is a new kind of payment infrastructure — instant, low-cost payments that cross borders as easily as they cross streets. Euro at its core, with built-in currency exchange for the whole continent. Designed in Europe, governed by European rules, built on open technology.

Instant
Settlement
30+
European Countries
Open
Source Infrastructure
For People & Businesses

Payments should be simple

Whether you're paying a supplier in Milan, receiving your salary in Berlin, or running an online shop from Tallinn — Raha makes payments instant, affordable, and secure across the entire continent.

Instant, everywhere

Payments arrive in seconds — whether the recipient is next door or in another country. No waiting, no clearing delays, no difference between domestic and cross-border.

Truly cross-border

Pay in euros, pounds, krone, zloty, or Swiss francs — Raha handles the currency seamlessly with low-cost FX built into the scheme. Whether you're in the eurozone or not, one account works across the whole continent.

Secure by design

Built-in fraud prevention powered by network-wide intelligence. Every transaction is screened, every fund flow is traceable — protecting you without slowing you down.

Fair pricing

Merchant fees capped at 0.30% — a fraction of the 0.5–1.5% charged by card networks. Person-to-person payments are free. No hidden interchange, no foreign scheme fees.

Works on any device

Pay with your phone, a QR code, an online checkout, or even offline. No proprietary hardware, no special terminals — just your existing smartphone.

Programmable money

Smart contracts enable automated payments — subscriptions, escrow, milestone-based payouts, and machine-to-machine transactions for the next generation of commerce.

For Europe

Payment sovereignty matters

Today, most European card payments depend on infrastructure headquartered outside the continent — subject to foreign policy decisions, fee structures set elsewhere, and geopolitical risks Europeans cannot control. Raha offers a different path.

Strategic autonomy

Europe needs payment infrastructure it owns and governs. When critical systems are controlled abroad, service continuity depends on decisions made in foreign capitals. Raha ensures European payments remain resilient, sovereign, and under European governance.

Built on European regulation

Designed from the ground up around MiCA, PSD2, DORA, eIDAS 2.0, and AMLD — not retrofitting compliance onto legacy systems but embedding it into the architecture from day one. Settlement in central bank money.

Continent-wide fraud prevention

A shared anti-financial-crime utility that sees across institutional boundaries. Graph-based analytics, real-time fund tracing, and intelligence sharing that make the entire network safer — capabilities no single bank or card network can deliver alone.

Competitive fees for the European economy

European merchants pay over €20 billion annually in card interchange and scheme fees — most of it flowing to non-European networks. Raha caps merchant fees at 0.30% with a transparent, flat network levy of €0.01 per transaction. That difference goes back into the European economy.

Use Cases

Built for real life

From everyday purchases to cross-border commerce — Raha is designed around the way people and businesses actually move money.

Customer paying at a shop

Merchants paid in seconds, not days

A bakery in Vienna, a boutique in Amsterdam, a restaurant in Athens — all receive funds the instant a customer pays. No two-day settlement wait, no interchange fees eating into margins. Merchants keep more of every euro.

Business professional working

Cross-border trade, settled instantly

A Finnish manufacturer pays a Czech supplier in koruna. A Norwegian agency hires a Spanish designer in euros. A UK retailer settles with an Italian wholesaler in pounds. Instant settlement, transparent FX, no correspondent banks or card networks in between.

Platform economy workers

Platform & gig economy payouts

Delivery riders, freelance designers, marketplace sellers — paid out instantly when they earn, not at the end of the month. Platforms reduce payout costs and workers get immediate access to their money.

Developer at work

Programmable & automated payments

Smart contracts enable what cards cannot — automated escrow, milestone-based payouts, machine-to-machine billing, and conditional payments. Built on open APIs and open-source infrastructure.

How It Works

Simple for users, rigorous underneath

Raha is a payment scheme — a set of rules, standards, and shared infrastructure that any licensed institution can join. Think of it as the operating system for European payments.

1

Open an account

Through any Raha-participating bank, payment institution, or wallet provider. Your identity is verified once using European digital identity standards.

2

Fund your wallet

Deposit via SEPA, Faster Payments, or your local payment system. Your balance is held as regulated e-money tokens — fully backed, redeemable 1:1 — with low-cost FX when you pay across currencies.

3

Pay anyone, anywhere

Send to a phone number, scan a QR code, or pay online. Cross-border works identically to domestic — instant settlement.

4

Always protected

Network-wide fraud screening, real-time fund tracing, and dispute resolution. Supervised by European regulators and settled in central bank money.

Architecture

Seven integrated components

Modular, open, and built on European standards. Each component has clear boundaries and vendor-neutral interfaces — no lock-in, full interoperability.

C1 Settlement Gateway
C2 Raha Ledger
C3 Wallet & Payments
C4 Identity & Access
C5 Anti-Financial-Crime
C6 Supervisory Gateway
C7 Consumer Redress
Founding Members

Built together

Raha brings together specialist partners — each contributing deep expertise in their domain — coordinated as a payment scheme.

Scheme Operator

Scheme design, orchestration, anti-financial-crime analytics

Ledger Technology

Token platform, offline payments, hardware security

E-Money Issuer

Licensed e-money tokens, SEPA on/off-ramp, reserves

Consumer Services

Multilingual AI customer service, dispute resolution

Clearing & Wallets

Multi-issuer clearing, wallet infrastructure, processing

Research & Policy

Grounded in evidence

Raha maintains an independent academic and policy research programme — ensuring the scheme's design is informed by rigorous analysis and aligned with European regulatory objectives.

UoM

University of Manchester

Alliance Manchester Business School

FinTech governance, payment scheme design, digital money ecosystems

CDI

Cambridge Digital Innovation

Judge Business School

Digital infrastructure research and innovation policy

BRU

Bruegel

Brussels

European economic policy, monetary infrastructure, digital finance

RUSI

RUSI Centre for Finance and Security

Future of Financial Intelligence Sharing

Anti-financial-crime policy and regulatory frameworks

Open Source

Transparent by default

Raha's specifications and reference implementation are developed in the open. We believe critical financial infrastructure should be auditable, verifiable, and open to contribution.

SPEC System Requirements
SPEC Architecture Overview
SPEC Interface Specifications
CODE Reference Implementation
DEV Developer Guide
Contact

Let's talk

Whether you're a financial institution, a regulator, a researcher, or a developer — we'd like to hear from you.

Dr Kimmo Soramäki
Founder & CEO, FNA
kimmo@fna.fi

FNA · Albert House, 256–260 Old Street, London EC1V 9DD