Background EPI project The aim of EPI's project is to achieve greater independence from the market power of American payment service providers. According to the management consultancy Capco, EPI's market entry may come too late for many, but the train has "not yet completely left the station, but is already in motion". The Center for Financial Studies believes that the end of 2021 will be the "last opportunity for Europe to establish a payment system that can keep up with global competition" (especially against US competitors). During 2020 and 2021, several attempts were made to initiate the creation of a European-based payment system that could rival card based payment solutions of America's
Visa and
Mastercard.
2022 After 20 banks from
Poland,
Spain, Germany and
Finland had withdrawn from the project in end of 2021, the remaining 13 banks pivoted the project towards a payment solution based on a digital wallet. EPI announced it wanted to start the "digital wallet" with mobile-to-mobile payments in Belgium, Germany and France. By offering its own app, according to the provider, almost all bank customers in these countries will most likely be able to use Wero. It should become comparable to Twint (Switzerland) and
MobilePay (Denmark).
2023 On 25 April, EPI announced that its shareholders confirmed the development (and launch) of the wallet based payment solution. Several European institutions, among them European Central Bank, welcomed the initiative. On 21 September 2023, EPI selected the name
Wero for its upcoming payment service. In December 2023, EPI launched a pilot operation between German
Sparkasse Elbe-Elster and the French
Banque Populaire, based on the fully-developed SCT-Inst SEPA payment solution.
2024 File:Wero-ffm-hbf.jpg|alt=Text: 10 Sekunden reichen nicht, um einen Bembel zu leeren. Aber mit Wero kannst du in 10 Sekunden von Konto zu Konto Geld senden und empfangen. (Translation: 10 seconds is not enough to empty a bembel. But with Wero you can send and receive money from account to account in 10 seconds). [Illustration of two phones with a rocket flying between them, one phone with the balance of minus €20 and the other €20 plus, logo of Wero, logos of supported banks, and download badges for Google Play and Apple App Store]|thumb|Advertisement board in
Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof promoting Wero and logos of supported banks On 2 July 2024, Wero was launched in Germany, with two German banks going live with the service. On 19 November 2024, Wero was launched in Belgium. As of November 2024, the service counts 14 million users and 8 million transactions were made. In December 2024, a first Wero e-commerce payment transaction was performed in a pilot setting. The next countries to follow will be Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
2025 Acquiring banks In February 2025,
Nexi Germany GmbH announced that it signed a contract with EPI that would allow its merchants to accept Wero for online commerce. In May 2025, Canadian payment service provider
Nuvei also announced that its clients would be able to use Wero for e-commerce businesses. French payment service providers
Worldline announced that it would enable its merchants to use Wero in online commerce, starting in summer 2025 in Germany. German payment company
Unzer announced that Wero would be accessible on its platform UnzerOne.
Issuing banks In June 2025, British fintech company
Revolut joined the EPI and would provide Wero to its clients in selected European countries. In mid-June 2025, five Luxembourgish banks (
Banque Internationale à Luxembourg,
Banque Raiffeisen,
Post Luxembourg,
BGL BNP Paribas and
Spuerkeess) joined the
European Payments Initiative (EPI) to enable their clients to use Wero, In July 2025, five Belgian banks (
ING Belgium, (
Argenta,
Bank van Breda,
Beobank,
Crelan and
vdk bank) also joined the
European Payments Initiative (EPI) to enable their customers to use Wero. In December 2025, German
fintech and
neobank N26 signed an agreement with EPI in order to integrate Wero as a payment option in its services, aiming for making Wero available for its clients in Germany, France and the Netherlands in the second half of 2026.
Product offering In September 2025,
EuroPA and EPI confirmed commitment to expand sovereign pan-European payments with a hub model. The intent is to interconnect their respective solutions through a central technical hub, based on European standards and infrastructure with a hub that will enable over 120 million combined customers of the participating solutions to offer day-to-day, instant cross-border payments across the different use cases. On November 4, the first online retailer started offering Wero as a payment method.
2026 In January 2026, the migration from iDEAL to Wero in the Netherlands began with a co-branding phase. Furthermore the Austrian company Payment Services Austria GmbH (PSA) announced its support for Wero. PSA is a key service provider for major banks in Austria. The EPI stated that Austria would join Wero in the near future. In February 2026
EuroPA and
EPI signed a Memorandum of Understanding. They plan to roll out peer-to-peer payments (e.g. among private individuals) that are fulfilled between the two systems in 2026. Also in February 2026, EPI announced that the number of registered users had exceeded 50 million. According to the news service
Retail News, payments at the physical checkout via QR code (e.g. in cafes or restaurants) are planned to be rolled out in 2026, while tap-to-pay payments via NFC that are aimed more at high frequency cash desks, for instance supermarket checkouts, are to follow in 2027. Between 1 July and 30 September, all Luxemburg customers of the
Payconiq payment system, including merchants formerly offering payments via Payconiq, will fully switch to Wero. The Payconiq payment app will be permanently shut down on 30 September. == Product features ==