Can't speak for all of Europe, but in Norway, the banks did it of their own accord. They got their heads together in the early 1990s and founded a private company, co-owned by all the banks, that has been stewarding the technology used for inter-bank transfers and card payments.

They've been quite good at this — Norway has had chip and pin since the early 2000s, and contactless payments (using NFC in ordinary cards, not phones) have existed for a few years now. Money transfers are also completely effortless; all you need is the other person's bank account number.

For consumers, the main hurdle remaining is the speed of transfers between banks. They only perform transfers in bulk twice a day (and for years they only did it once a day).