The fear that Donald Trump’s United States might decide to limit Europe’s access to American payment services, given their aggressiveness in foreign policy, is accelerating the development of a domestic alternative. This was said to Reuters by Martina Weimert, CEO of the European Payments Initiative, a Brussels-based consortium.
The European Payments Initiative has developed Wero, a payment system aimed at providing an alternative to Visa and MasterCard – the two American companies dominating the credit and debit card market – but also to Apple Pay.
HOW WERO WORKS AND WHO SUPPORTS IT
Launched in 2024, Wero is supported by a group of banks and financial services companies – such as the Italian Nexi and the French Worldline – and allows, for example, a German user to pay a hotel bill in France directly using their bank account, without going through a Visa or MasterCard card. If the system were to spread, these two companies could see at least part of the billion-dollar rents derived from the fees they charge European merchants disappear.
Among Wero’s supporters, in addition to Nexi and Worldline, there are also Bnp Paribas (French), Crédit Agricole (French), Société Générale (French), Deutsche Bank (German), Rabobank (Dutch), Ing (Dutch), and Kbc (Belgian) as well.
SPREAD AND CHALLENGES
The problem with Wero is its still decidedly limited scope of use.
For the moment, in fact, the system is limited to peer-to-peer transfers (in jargon), while international circuits, such as those of Visa and MasterCard, continue to represent about two-thirds of card transactions in the euro area: according to the European Central Bank. Added to this is the risk of fragmentation, linked to the presence of various national payment schemes: this is the case of Italy and Spain, for example, which maintain domestic logics while declaring collaborative intentions, explains Reuters.
Currently, Wero is available only in Belgium, France, and Germany, with a growing user base – from September to today it has increased from 43.5 million to 52.5 million users – but still limited compared to the size of the European market. Expansion towards the Netherlands and Luxembourg is planned during next year.
AND THE DIGITAL EURO?
As for the digital euro, that is the central bank digital currency that the ECB would like to issue in 2029, Weimert said she does not consider it an obstacle to Wero, but rather something that could be integrated into the platform.
“I have nothing against the digital euro,” said the CEO of the European Payments Initiative to Reuters. “What I find rather strange is that, in the current context, where clearly every day we say: ‘Oh, we have a problem with European sovereignty,’ we say: ‘Oh, let’s wait another five years before the digital euro becomes a reality and then hope it works.’”
The digital euro is, in short, an electronic and equivalent “transposition” of the currency issued by the ECB, usable as an additional and faster payment method in the eurozone. For the institution led by Christine Lagarde, which is promoting its launch with some insistence, the digital euro is also a tool useful to strengthen the strategic autonomy of the European Union in the provision of payment services.
– Also read: Nexi, Almaviva, Fabrick and more: here are the companies chosen by the ECB for the digital euro
PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS
The European Union has already tried in the past to carve out space in the payment sector, but without success: the Monnet project, which aimed to create a European credit card brand, was closed due to disagreements over the business model to adopt. Its legacy was taken up in 2020 by the European Payments Initiative.
