Wero is a European mobile payment system intended to replace Giropay in Germany, Paylib in France,[1]Payconiq in Belgium[2] and Luxembourg and iDEAL in the Netherlands. The service was launched on 2 July 2024 by the European Payments Initiative.[3] The service intends to compete with PayPal and similar services, beginning as a real-time payment system and later with an extended online payment function.
Initiated to be independent of both Americans payment companies Visa and Mastercard, and their competitors, the Wero mobile application is still US-dependent as it requires the customer to use it via Apple's iOS, or Google's Android/AOSP. That makes Wero still USA-dependent by the mobile system, de facto.
The name is a portmanteau made up of the English personal pronoun we and the European's common currency's name Euro, but is also based on the Italian vero (true).[4]
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."[5] 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 Visa and Mastercard.
2022
After 20 banks from Poland, Spain, Germany and Finland had withdrawn from the project end of 2021, the remaining 13 banks pivoted the project towards a payment solution based on a digital wallet.[6]
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.[7] Several European institutions, among them European Central Bank, welcomed the initiative.[8]
On 21 September 2023, EPI selected the name 'Wero' for its upcoming payment service.[9]
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
On 2 July 2024, Wero was launched in Germany, with two German banks going live with the service.[3] On 30 September 2024, Wero was launched in France.[10] On 19 November 2024 Wero was launched in Belgium.[11] As of November 2024 the service counts 14 million users and 8 million transactions were made.[12]
In December a first Wero e-commerce payment transaction was performed in a pilot setting.[13] The next countries to follow will be Luxembourg and the Netherlands.[14]
Product features
P2P Contact list payments
A user can associate a phone number to their bank account, with a maximum of three phone numbers per bank account. A person can make a bank transfer to another person's bank account, using their phone number instead of their IBAN.
P2P Wero QR codes generation
A user can create a QR code, by selecting the bank account and specifying the requested amount in Euros. A person can make a bank transfer by scanning the QR code, selecting their bank account and approving the transaction.
Future planned features
EPI announced in July 2024, that it will extend Wero's offering to online and mobile shopping payments (in 2025) and then NFC enabled point-of-sale payments (2026). A additional comprehensive range of transaction types is planned to be supported later, including one-off payments, subscriptions, installments, payments upon delivery and reservations. Additionally, value-added services will be incorporated into the solution over time, including responsible 'Buy Now, Pay Later' (BNPL) financing, digital identity features and integration of merchant loyalty programmes.[7]
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