The European Payments Initiative (EPI) will launch its pan-European digital wallet for use on both iOS and Android devices under the commercial name of Wero, the initiative has revealed.

The EPI — which was set up with investment from more than 30 banks and acquirers to develop a European payments system as a rival to Visa and Mastercard — also confirmed that it “is actively working towards launching Wero by mid-2024 in Belgium, France and Germany, followed by the Netherlands, and aims to extend to other countries in the years to come”.

“Wero is set to redefine the way people living in Europe pay and would like to get paid, by leveraging an account-to-account infrastructure enabling faster payment flows with a wide range of value-added services,” the EPI says.

“Through this new digital wallet, consumers will have access to a comprehensive range of features, such as secure and fast payments, person-to-person (P2P) transactions, online shopping capabilities, loyalty programs etc. 

“EPI envisions Wero to become the preferred digital wallet in Europe, bridging the existing gaps in the current payment ecosystem.”

The initiative chose the name Wero because “it combines different elements which we stand for: the collective European character of the ‘we’ and a pronunciation close to the word ‘Euro’. Finally, Wero is close to ‘vero’, meaning ‘true’ in Latin-based languages.”

The EPI announced in April that it plans to begin piloting the digital wallet for instant P2P payments in Germany and France.

Plans to set up the pan-European payments system were first revealed in November 2019 and the EPI announced that the original partner banks and acquirers had invested a total of €30m (US$31.8m) in the project by May 2021.

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