It's the complete opposite of what you said, at least in terms of numbers.
The U.S. historically had many more banks than in Europe as the banking industry in Europe has historically been more centralized at the national level. Whereas in the U.S. not only did we have 50 states each regulating their own banking system (similar to Europe), but you had many more smaller banks rather than a few larger ones in each state.
It appears the U.S. now has fewer banks, but that's only because of a precipitous decline over the past few decades, and it's only been in the paste several years that the number of E.U. banks surpassed those in the U.S., long after the E.U. saw better payment systems.
So the reason the E.U. banking industry has more convenient payment systems, especially retail payment systems, is because they were historically both more centralized and less in number, which made consistent adoption of newer payment systems easier. Whereas the banking system in the U.S. was more fractured and far more diverse, and even with the dramatic drop in number and increase in centralization, we still see the repercussions.
The U.S. historically had many more banks than in Europe as the banking industry in Europe has historically been more centralized at the national level. Whereas in the U.S. not only did we have 50 states each regulating their own banking system (similar to Europe), but you had many more smaller banks rather than a few larger ones in each state.
It appears the U.S. now has fewer banks, but that's only because of a precipitous decline over the past few decades, and it's only been in the paste several years that the number of E.U. banks surpassed those in the U.S., long after the E.U. saw better payment systems.
So the reason the E.U. banking industry has more convenient payment systems, especially retail payment systems, is because they were historically both more centralized and less in number, which made consistent adoption of newer payment systems easier. Whereas the banking system in the U.S. was more fractured and far more diverse, and even with the dramatic drop in number and increase in centralization, we still see the repercussions.