New advances for EPI and Wero

The European Payments Initiative (EPI) has just taken advantage of the announcement concerning the (expected) roll-out of Wero in Belgium to provide an initial update on its adoption. The initiative is seeking to underline that it is on schedule and that its initial results are positive, in order to reassure the market and confirm its status in the face of competition from other alternative offerings.

FACTS

• Wero today announced the first results of its European rollout. The service now covers 3 markets: Germany, France and Belgium, thanks to its recent local roll-out.

• And the service now boasts 14 million registered users. Since its launch in Germany last July, 8 million transactions have been processed via the Wero service.

• Wero has been deployed in all EPI banking members' applications. A complementary EPI application will shortly be launched to enable users to send and receive funds.
  The launch of Wero's peer-to-peer (P2P) service now enables users to send and receive money easily and instantly, simply by providing the recipient's phone number or e-mail address.

• Other value-added services will be offered by EPI via Wero in the future, such as payment at physical or online merchants, BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Leter), integration of loyalty programs or management of recurring payments linked to subscriptions.

• Wero aims to become an all-in-one European payment solution that will enable everyone to manage their finances easily and securely within the next three to four years.

CHALLENGES

• Securing the European model: According to the Managing Director of Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV, the German savings bank association), Wero will enable the development of a new standard for digital payments in Germany, and actively contribute to Europe's independence and sovereignty in payments.

• Continued deployment: In July, the European Payments Initiative (EPI) finally brought its model to fruition with the official launch of Wero in Germany. This was followed in October by the launch of the European digital payment wallet in France, replacing the local Paylib service. Belgian users can now make wider use of the service in place of Payconiq (it was first offered to customers of KBC and CBC banks, then to those of Belfius, and is now also available to customers of BNP Paribas-Fortis, Fintro, HelloBank! and ING). Banks in Luxembourg and the Netherlands are set to follow suit.

• Consolidating its status as a legitimate reference: For EPI, presenting its first results and confirming its ongoing roll-out in Europe also represents a means of consolidating its positions and advances, at a time when competition from other players is also materializing.

MARKET PERSPECTIVE

• Wero's ambitions as an interoperable solution on the European market are notably contradicted by players such as Blik, a Polish mobile payment system, which last August joined forces with Aion Bank and Vodeno to launch Blik-as-a-Service (BaaS) in Europe.

• In Southern Europe, Bancomat, Bizum and SIBS have recently finalized their partnership, having carried out their first interoperable cross-border instant payment transactions.

• Meanwhile, Vipps MobilePay is rolling out P2P payments across the Nordic countries.