“Can a bank-owned national payments switch become an international embedded-payments and open-banking platform beyond Portugal?”
SIBS was founded in 1983 by the Portuguese banking sector to build shared interbank payment infrastructure, launching the MULTIBANCO ATM/POS network in 1985–1987 that remains Portugal's dominant payment scheme. Over four decades, it evolved from a domestic switch/processor into a multi-country payments group (SGPS holding structure with regulated payment institutions SIBS Pagamentos and SIBS Forward Payment Solutions) offering issuing, acquiring, MB WAY wallet, scheme management (scheme MB), card personalisation and open-banking APIs across ~30 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. Its more recent pivot is opening its rails via the SIBS API Market and 'API | Open banking' products to fintechs and non-bank corporates — moving from bank-owned utility to embedded-finance platform.
SIBS processes payments through SIBS Gateway (self-operated), SIBS Pay (self-operated), MULTIBANCO (self-operated) and MB WAY (self-operated). Disclosed money-movement rails: SWIFT and SEPA.
SIBS's cards are issued through SIBS (in-house) on the Visa and Mastercard networks.
SIBS uses SIBS (in-house) for KYC and identity verification.
SIBS connects to bank accounts through SIBS API Market (in-house).
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 8 layers in SIBS's stack: Payments / PSP (SIBS Gateway (self-operated), SIBS Pay (self-operated), MULTIBANCO (self-operated) and MB WAY (self-operated)); Money movement (SWIFT and SEPA); Card issuing (SIBS (in-house)); Card network (Visa and Mastercard); Lending (BNPL (announced, coming soon)); Open banking (SIBS API Market (in-house)); KYC (SIBS (in-house)); Transaction enrichment (SIBS (in-house)).
SIBS is founded in 1983 and headquartered in Amadora, Portugal.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against SIBS and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.