Wero reduces its dependence on international providers
April 27, 2026
The European Payments Initiative (EPI) was founded to establish Wero as a European payment solution, offering an alternative to international providers in the market with the clear objective of strengthening the long-term strategic autonomy and resilience of Europe’s payments ecosystem.
Wero is based on European standards, its own rules and purely European governance: it uses the European SEPA real-time payment infrastructure, develops and follows European scheme rules, and is supported and financed by European institutions. This ensures central control over Wero remains clearly in Europe.
When EPI first launched Wero, only cloud services from international providers could deliver the performance, security and stability needed to deliver a competitive solution. EPI is committed to progressively increasing its use of European-based providers while maintaining the highest standards of performance, security and resilience, but Wero currently still relies on services from outside Europe in certain areas. All EPI and Wero data is stored in European data centers, and is encrypted and protected against potential extraterritorial access through appropriate security measures.
EPI is currently working to reduce its dependency on non-European suppliers. The market has evolved significantly in recent years, and we are now building on this progress to drive this transition forward.
About EPI
EPI (or European Payments Initiative) is supported by 16 European banks and payment service providers. Beyond the shareholders, 45 institutions in Europe are now members of EPI. They have joined forces with a common goal: to offer a unified mobile payment service, to all European companies and citizens, Wero. EPI intends to enable European consumers and merchants and to carry out all types of retail transactions simply, via a resolutely sovereign digital wallet.
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About Wero
Based on instant account-to-account (A2A) payments, Wero further streamlines payments in Europe by eliminating intermediaries in the payment chain and the associated additional costs. Wero already supports payments between individuals, and will shortly unveil payments to professionals (P2Pro). Wero has been live for P2P payments in Belgium, France, and Germany since 2024, currently serving 53 million users. For retail payments, Wero is live in Germany since the end of 2025 with progressive roll-out in France and Belgium throughout 2026. Major migrations of at least 15 million consumers are also planned for Payconiq in Luxembourg (by 2026) and iDEAL in the Netherlands (by 2027). Point-of-sale payments will also be offered in 2026, as well as value-added services such as integration of merchant loyalty programs and recurring payments and subscription management.
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EPI/Wero media contact: media@epicompany.eu and/or Hub.epi@omnicomprgroup.com