# MB WAY QR > Source: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/mb-way-qr > research date 2026-05-29 · extracted at 2026-10-06 > Publisher: Barcoder — encyclopedia of QR, barcode and payment-code standards Specifications: - [MB WAY — SIBS (official)](https://www.sibs.com/en/marcas/mb-way/) - [QR Code Express — SIBS Gateway documentation](https://www.docs.pay.sibs.com/portugal/sibs-gateway/payment-methods/qr-code-express/) ## Overview **MB WAY** is Portugal's dominant mobile payment app, operated by **SIBS** (the central Portuguese payment infrastructure company that also runs Multibanco since 1985) [1][1], [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). It evolved from **TeleMultibanco (1996) → MB Phone (2008) → MB WAY (rebranded 2014)**, with the modern feature-rich MB WAY launching in **2015** with QR codes, NFC, in-store payments, MB NET virtual cards, and cardless ATM withdrawal [2][2], [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). By 2024 MB WAY has **~6 million users (≈ 60 % of Portuguese adult population) and 95 % bank coverage** (28 banks) [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), with a **45 % market share of Portuguese e-commerce transactions** [2][2]. The **MB WAY QR feature** — branded **QR Code Express** for static-merchant QR — enables one printed QR sticker to be scanned and paid multiple times via MB WAY [3][3], [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). SIBS is a **EuroPA founding member** (with Bizum Spain and Bancomat Italy) for cross-border instant mobile payments since March 2025 [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). ## History **The SIBS / Multibanco foundation (1985)** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [4][4]: SIBS launched **Multibanco** on **2 September 1985** as Portugal's unified national ATM and payment network. Over the following four decades Multibanco grew to **13,000+ ATM terminals across Portugal, 27 participating banks, 60+ different services** including bill payments, top-ups, ticketing, and the distinctive **Multibanco Reference** payment-code system (Entity + Reference + Amount). **MB WAY's lineage** [2][2], [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT): | Year | Brand | Description | |---|---|---| | **1996** | **TeleMultibanco** | Phone-banking precursor; balance queries, basic transactions via voice | | **2008** | **MB Phone** | Mobile-banking rebrand; smartphone-era features | | **2014** | **MB WAY** | Modern rebrand under MB (Multibanco) Way branding | | **2015** | MB WAY (relaunch) | Full feature set: QR Code Express, NFC payments, MB NET virtual cards, cardless ATM, in-store / online checkout | | **2018** | **SIBS Instant Payments** | National SCT Inst rail launched, providing the instant-settlement foundation | | **2020** | TIPS connection | SIBS connects to TIPS for pan-European instant payments | | **2024** | SPIN | Phone-number / tax-ID-based instant transfers added (separate product, same rail) | | **December 2023** | EuroPA founded | SIBS joins Bizum (ES) and Bancomat (IT) as founding member | | **March 2025** | **EuroPA live cross-border** | First cross-border transactions; ~50+ million connected users | | **June 2025** | **EuroPA-EPI partnership** announced | Feasibility study for 15-country pan-European integration | By 2024, MB WAY had become Portugal's universal mobile payment infrastructure, with SIBS continuously layering new features (QR Code Express expansion, cardless ATM, contactless NFC, EuroPA cross-border) onto the same MB WAY app and brand. ## Technical specification MB WAY operates on **SIBS Instant Payments** (SCT Inst connected to TIPS) and the underlying **Multibanco network infrastructure** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [3][3]: | Layer | Description | |---|---| | **Underlying rail** | SIBS Instant Payments → TIPS (pan-European SCT Inst) | | **Settlement** | Real-time, 24/7/365 | | **Cost** | Free for P2P; merchant fees apply | | **Bank coverage** | 28 banks (~95 % of Portuguese accounts) | | **App** | Standalone MB WAY app (operated by SIBS) + integration in major bank apps | **Interaction modes** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [3][3], [2][2]: | Mode | Description | |---|---| | **P2P (phone number)** | Send by recipient's mobile number; instant settlement | | **MB NET virtual card** | Generate one-time-use virtual card numbers for online payment safety | | **QR Code Express (static)** | Single printable QR per merchant — can be scanned and paid multiple times; supports physical goods, digital goods, services [3][3] | | **Dynamic QR** | POS-terminal-generated per transaction with amount embedded | | **NFC contactless** | Android and iPhone NFC tap-to-pay at NFC POS terminals | | **Cardless ATM** | Customer scans QR on ATM screen with MB WAY app, authenticates with PIN/TouchID/FaceID, ATM unlocks for use [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT) | | **Phone-number-at-POS** | Tell cashier your phone number, confirm payment in app | | **Multibanco reference** | Pay any Multibanco-reference invoice via MB WAY app (entity + reference + amount) | | **Online checkout** | E-commerce integration via SIBS Gateway | **QR Code Express specifics** [3][3]: - **Static** — single QR per merchant; consumer enters amount; QR reusable indefinitely. - **Use cases** — physical goods, digital goods, services, including informal vendors and farm stalls. - **Available on traditional media and physical devices** — printed sticker, screen, terminal display. - **Instant payment confirmation** to both consumer and merchant. **Multibanco Reference (legacy + parallel)** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT): A distinct payment-code system that predates QR and remains widely used: - **Entity number** — 5 digits identifying the biller / merchant - **Reference number** — variable-length numeric, per-invoice - **Amount** — payment value - **Generated server-side** with optional expiry - **Validated** via check-digit - **Paid via** ATM, home banking, or MB WAY app Multibanco Reference is structurally parallel to QR Code Express but predates QR codes by ~25 years — and **continues to coexist with QR** because of universal Portuguese consumer familiarity and the entrenched billing-software ecosystem. ## Use cases MB WAY is Portugal's universal mobile payment infrastructure [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [2][2]: - **P2P transfers** — instant by phone number; the launch use case and still substantial. - **E-commerce checkout** — **45 % market share of Portuguese e-commerce transactions** [2][2]; consumer's most preferred online payment method. - **In-store retail POS** — QR Code Express + NFC at merchants of all sizes. - **Farm stalls and informal vendors** — **1,900+ Portuguese farm stands accept MB WAY** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT) — the printable-QR-sticker advantage works at otherwise-untrackable transaction points. - **Cardless ATM withdrawal** — QR-based ATM access without a physical card; consumer authenticates via mobile app biometrics. - **Bill payments via Multibanco Reference** — utilities, telecom, government fees, school fees. - **Online subscriptions and recurring charges** — MB NET virtual cards for safer online card-not-present transactions. - **Cross-border via EuroPA (since March 2025)** — Portuguese consumers paying Spanish (Bizum) or Italian (Bancomat) merchants and vice versa. - **Tourist payment acceptance** — Portuguese merchants accepting EuroPA-routed cross-border tourists. **Scale** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [2][2]: - **~6 million users** (~60 % of Portuguese adult population) - **3.5 million users making 9 million purchases per month** (alternative recent count [2][2]) - **28 banks** (~95 % bank coverage) - **45 % e-commerce market share** - **99.8 % of retail payments in Portugal are electronic** (broader context, MB WAY is a major contributor) ## Implementations MB WAY's integration model is **SIBS-mediated** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [5][5]: **Bank-app integrations** (canonical production consumption) [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT): | App | Bank | |---|---| | CGD Caixadirecta | Caixa Geral de Depósitos (state-owned, market leader) | | Millennium | Banco Comercial Português (BCP) | | Santander PT | Banco Santander Totta | | NB smart | Novo Banco | | BPI App | Banco BPI | | MB WAY App (standalone) | SIBS | Plus 22+ additional Portuguese bank apps — universal Portuguese banking-system coverage. **Merchant / e-commerce gateways**: - **SIBS Gateway** — official MB WAY merchant integration platform; REST APIs for QR Code Express, dynamic QR, references, recurring payments [3][3], [5][5]. - Major international PSPs (Stripe, Adyen, Worldpay, etc.) offer MB WAY as a Portuguese-market payment method. **Open-source library ecosystem** is essentially absent — SIBS gates the production protocol; integration is via SIBS Gateway APIs or bank-app SDKs. ## Comparison **vs. [Bizum](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/bizum) (Spain)** — Closest peer; **EuroPA founding partners** since March 2025. Both founded by national banking-system consortia, both built on SCT Inst, both achieved national mobile payment dominance. MB WAY predates Bizum by ~2 years (2014/2015 vs 2016) but Bizum reached scale faster (Spanish banking-system concentration helped). EuroPA cross-border interop now bridges them [bizum-ref], [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [Spain report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/ES). **vs. [BLIK](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/blik) (Poland), [Swish QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/swish-qr) (Sweden), [TWINT](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/twint) (Switzerland)** — All bank-consortium-founded national mobile payment systems in their respective home markets. MB WAY's distinctive feature is **closer integration with a pre-existing nationwide ATM/POS network (Multibanco)** than its peers; Multibanco gave MB WAY universal Portuguese acceptance from launch in a way that other peers had to build organically [[blik-ref], [swish-ref], [twint-ref]]. **vs. [EPC QR / Stuzza](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/epc-qr) (pan-European invoice QR)** — Complementary; EPC QR is for printed invoice payment-initiation, MB WAY's QR Code Express is for mobile-app-mediated merchant payment. The Multibanco Reference system (Entity + Reference + Amount) historically filled the role EPC QR fills in other eurozone countries; Portugal continues both [epc-ref], [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). **vs. [Swiss QR-bill](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/swiss-qr-bill) (Switzerland)** — Both are national invoice / billing payment systems (Switzerland's QR-bill via printed QR; Portugal's via Multibanco Reference + MB WAY). Different formats, similar role in each country's billing-payment workflow [[swiss-qr-bill-ref]]. ## Fun facts **MB WAY's lineage stretches back to 1996** [2][2] — TeleMultibanco was a phone-banking service that pre-dated smartphones. The rebrand to MB Phone (2008) coincided with smartphone adoption; the rebrand to MB WAY (2014) coincided with the app-economy maturation; the relaunch with full features (2015) made it a modern mobile-payment platform. Few national mobile-payment products have a 30-year continuous lineage like this — most are 2010s-era greenfield builds. **Portugal's payment ecosystem is uniquely centralised under one operator** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). SIBS operates **all of Multibanco, MB WAY, SIBS Instant Payments, the national clearing rail SICOI, and most acquirer-side merchant gateways**. This is a deliberate Portuguese choice — pooling national payment infrastructure in a single industry-owned company rather than fragmenting across competitors. The result is that MB WAY launched with universal-bank participation from day one (rare for national mobile payment systems). **1,900+ Portuguese farm stands accept MB WAY** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT) — the same farm-stand-honesty-box-pattern observed for TWINT in Switzerland. Printable QR stickers enable transaction capture at otherwise-untrackable informal commerce points; this is a structural advantage of mobile-payment-via-QR over card-network-via-POS-terminal in rural / informal-vendor contexts. **EuroPA — Bizum (Spain) + MB WAY (Portugal) + Bancomat (Italy)** — was the first cross-border-instant-mobile-payment-product that actually launched in production (March 2025) at consumer-relevant scale [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). Pan-European mobile payment interoperability has been talked about for years (EBA's various initiatives, EPI, Wero); EuroPA is the southern-European subset that delivered first. The subsequent expansion to Andorra, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Norway, Poland, Sweden brings cumulative coverage to **~382 million people across 15 countries**. **The Multibanco Reference system (Entity + Reference + Amount)** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT) is one of the most-distinctively-Portuguese payment-system features. A Portuguese consumer recognises an invoice's Entity number (e.g., 21800 = a specific utility) and pays by typing the reference number into their ATM or banking app — no QR scan, no card, no transfer setup. Decades of consumer familiarity make this still the dominant invoice-payment mode in Portugal even as MB WAY's QR Code Express grows. ## Status **Active, dominant, internationalising via EuroPA** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT), [2][2]: - **~6 million MB WAY users** (~60 % of Portuguese adult population) - **28 banks** (~95 % coverage) - **45 % e-commerce market share** - **99.8 % of retail payments electronic** (broader; MB WAY is a major contributor) - **EuroPA cross-border live** since March 2025 (with Spain and Italy; expanding to Denmark, Finland, Greece, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Andorra) - **EuroPA-EPI partnership** in feasibility study (Dec 2025) — could enable pan-European sovereign mobile payment solution **Strategic context** [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT): - EU 2024/886 Instant Payments Regulation (mandatory Jan/Oct 2025) — boosts SCT Inst foundation underneath MB WAY. - **SPIN** (phone-number/tax-ID instant transfer) launched 2024 alongside MB WAY — additional layer on the same rail. - **Confirmation of Payee** required service deployed; **77 % fraud reduction** reported; **83.2 million** payee verifications in 2024 [Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT). - **Digital euro participation** — SIBS active in ECB digital euro preparation, testing tokenisation and DLT. No deprecation planned. MB WAY is core Portuguese national payment infrastructure; SIBS continues to layer new features rather than rearchitect. ## Sources [1]: https://www.sibs.com/en/marcas/mb-way/ [2]: https://www.ppro.com/payment-methods/mb-way/ [3]: https://www.docs.pay.sibs.com/portugal/sibs-gateway/payment-methods/qr-code-express/ [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multibanco [5]: https://www.sibs.com/payments-app-and-sdk/ [6]: https://www.corporate.sibs.com/10-years-of-mb-way/ [7]: https://www.portugal.com/lifestyle/the-history-of-mb-way-portugals-money-transfer-system/ [8]: https://www.bportugal.pt/en/publicacao/report-payment-systems-2024 [9]: https://www.fintechfutures.com/instant-real-time-payments/cross-border-instant-payments-between-bancomat-bizum-and-sibs-launched-through-europa [10]: https://www.transfi.com/blog/portugals-payment-rails-how-they-work---sepa-multibanco-mb-way [pt-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT [es-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/ES [bizum-ref]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/source/standards/bizum [blik-ref]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/source/standards/blik [swish-ref]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/source/standards/swish-qr [twint-ref]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/source/standards/twint [epc-ref]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/source/standards/epc-qr [swiss-qr-bill-ref]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/source/standards/swiss-qr-bill 1. [MB WAY — SIBS (official)][1] 2. [MB WAY payment method — PPRO][2] 3. [QR Code Express — SIBS Gateway documentation][3] 4. [Multibanco — Wikipedia][4] 5. [Payments App and SDK — SIBS][5] 6. [10 years of MB WAY — SIBS corporate][6] 7. [History of MB WAY — Portugal.com][7] 8. [Report on Payment Systems 2024 — Banco de Portugal][8] 9. [EuroPA cross-border launch — Fintech Futures][9] 10. [Portugal payment rails — Transfi][10] 11. [PT-portugal.md][Portugal report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT) ## Deployments Found in the following country reports (grep across `reports/countries/`): - **PT** — [PT-portugal.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PT)