I lived in the UK and worked in the Finance Industry there, as well as in a couple of other countries in Europe, and the idea that the UK banking sector is "very competitive [...] compared to pretty much any other country" or there not being frequent dodgy behaviours from banks/payment processors is hilariously.

Just look at how a physical payment with one's debit card (which goes directly to the bank account) can trigger oversized "uncovered overdraft fees" rather than just deny the payment if there are not enough funds in the account for that card like in countries like Portugal and The Netherlands: I literally dumped the first bank I had in the UK when I moved there from The Netherlands exactly because they charged me £30 overdraft fees on a payment ON A DEBIT CARD because my current account which was directly linked to it had £5 less than the amount I was trying to pay (plenty of money on the savings account though), rather than the payment attempt being rejected, even though when I first got that account I explicitly enquired about it I was told payments attempts on that card without enough funds would be rejected.

UK banking is riddled with insane fees for every little possible thing imaginable (especially user mistakes), from presential payments where the account doesn't have enough funds (where instead of the payment being denied they charge you money) to things like getting a paper bank statement from the bank and those fees are invariably many times more than the actual cost for the bank of it - "competition" between banks in the UK is purelly slimy "introductory rates" that change after a year or two for highly visibly stuff whilst everything that's standard with the account anywhere else costs extra in the UK and every customer mistake results in a punitive charge.

Even in my homeland of Portugal, where banking is pretty much a cartel where all the big institutions regularly buy politicians from both main parties with non-executive board memberships and gold-plated consulting gigs (in all fairness, in the UK it's the same), banking is nowhere as slimy and abusive as in Britain.

I get the impression you never had a bank account anywhere else if you think banking in the UK is "very competitive" and that the frequency of "dodgy behaviours" is low there, because comparativelly with where I lived and banked elsewhere in Europe, retail banking in the UK is a totally disgraceful leech-filled swamp.

Or maybe it's me having "lived a blessed life" in terms of my banking because I've only ever lived and banked in Europe.

As for the rest, Europe doesn't have a unified payment processing system but pretty much each country in it has one, whilst in the UK there is no such thing at all and instead mainly Visa is used. As for they're "working on it", in my personal experience in Britain it means nothing at all because all the cunts in leadership positions in both Government and Finance over there are liars who regularly get away with it: going with "it ain't happenning until it actually happens" when it comes to the promises of those people is the most successful posture over there if you're not an insider by far.