7-508: The European Payments Initiative ( EPI ), previously known as the Pan-European Payments System Initiative ( PEPSI ), is a unified digital payment service backed by 16 European banks and payment service providers. Its aim is to allow European consumers and merchants to make next-generation payments for all types of person-to-person transfers and retail transactions via a digital wallet, called Wero . Wero
14-404: A comprehensive range of transaction types, including one-off payments, subscriptions, installments, payments upon delivery and reservations. Value-added services will be incorporated into the solution over time, including responsible ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) financing, digital identity features (allowing the tracking of consumers in every EU country and the blocking of payments when needed) and
21-789: Is backed by the European Commission and has 16 founding shareholders based in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands: ABN Amro , Belfius , Crédit Mutuel , BNP Paribas , Groupe BPCE , Crédit Agricole , Deutsche Bank , Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe , DZ Bank , ING Group , KBC Bank , La Banque Postale , Nexi , Rabobank , Société Générale , Worldline . The EPI system is based on the SEPA instant credit transfer (SCT Inst) scheme, allowing it to capitalise on powerful and sophisticated existing infrastructures, such as
28-560: Is based on instant account-to-account payments and will eliminate intermediaries in the payment chain and associated costs. It is supported by the European Commission , and currently comprises fourteen major European banks and two acquirers (including all the major French banks , Deutsche Bank in Germany. The EPI scheme is not the first attempt to set up a European interbank payment and card network. The Monnet Project
35-467: The Eurosystem's TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS). Wero, with its payment network, digital wallet and international instant payments scheme, aims to replace European domestic solutions such as Swish, iDEAL, Bizum and Blik. QR code payments will be available for both money transfers and payments, with plans for more payment options in the future. Wero is available both through
42-681: The mobile apps of member banks and as a standalone app. It offers currency conversion throughout Europe. The first countries to launch Wero are Belgium, France and Germany. The European Payments Initiative (EPI) has announced its intention to launch under the name 'Wero' in Germany in mid-2024, followed by France and Belgium later in that year and the Netherlands in 2025. The rest of Europe will follow in subsequent years. Wero will initially enable person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-professional (P2Pro) payments, followed by online and mobile shopping payments and then point-of-sale payments. It will offer
49-574: Was initiated in 2008 by around twenty European banks but abandoned in 2012. The European Payments initiative was first suggested as a response to threats to the independence of international financial service infrastructure which could force the American companies MasterCard and VISA to cut off access to their networks in Europe. These threats led European institutions to launch a second initiative to create an independent payment system. The EPI project
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