Europe’s Players Unite to Challenge Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal With Shared Payment Network

Europe’s banks are working on a joint response to Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal — and it is taking shape. With a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in February 2026, the French-German-Belgian-Dutch Wero initiative (operated by EPI Company) and the members of the EuroPA Alliance — Bancomat, Bizum, SIBS-MB WAY, and Vipps MobilePay — have agreed to build a shared, cross-border payment infrastructure.

Together, the five providers claim to reach around 130 million users across 13 European countries, representing approximately 72 percent of the population of the EU plus Norway. The goal is to enable these users to make cross-border payments in the future without switching their familiar app. A French Wero user, for example, could send money to a Spanish Bizum contact as if it were a domestic transaction.

Who expects what reach

The five participating systems each cover different markets:

• Wero (EPI Company): active in France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. More than 48 million users are already familiar with the P2P service, and around €6 billion has been transferred since September 2024. In France alone, Wero has approximately 16 million active users according to Stripe.
• Bizum: the market leader in P2P payments in Spain.
• Bancomat: an Italian provider with broad banking connectivity.
• MB WAY (SIBS): the dominant solution in Portugal.
• Vipps MobilePay: the Nordic provider active in Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden.

Within the EuroPA Alliance, interoperability among the three founding members is already operational: since March 2025, more than 50 million users in Andorra, Italy, Portugal, and Spain — customers of 186 financial institutions — have been able to send and receive money instantly across borders. Poland’s BLIK and the Greek IRIS system have also joined the initiative and are to be integrated gradually.

Timeline: P2P first, commerce to follow

The rollout is proceeding in stages. Peer-to-peer transfers are set to be available across all 13 covered countries in 2026, followed by online and in-store merchant payments. The participating providers state a shared goal of enabling seamless cross-border payments across Europe by 2027.

An initial technical proof of concept already exists: in a proof of concept, users of Bancomat, Wero, and MB WAY were able to carry out QR-code-based person-to-merchant payments at merchants in each other’s networks, supported by La Banque Postale, Intesa Sanpaolo, and 28 MB WAY financial institutions.

A central interoperability platform is planned to connect the national systems with one another without replacing their respective brands. Governance is to be handled through a joint entity that the partners intend to establish.

Background: How Wero works

Wero is not a conventional wallet with a stored balance, but rather an overlay solution built on top of existing bank accounts. Specifically, it is a digital wallet that processes real-time payments via the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme and is managed by the European Payments Initiative (EPI). Users access it either through their primary bank’s app or via a standalone Wero app.

Technically, this means: Wero uses the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer protocol and existing account-to-account (A2A) rails to transfer money between bank accounts within around ten seconds — via phone number, email address, or QR code. Unlike card payments or conventional SEPA transfers, the recipient does not need to provide an IBAN. Security is based on European banking standards and PSD2 regulation, including Strong Customer Authentication (SCA); all data is processed in compliance with GDPR.

In e-commerce, Wero works similarly to established local payment methods: at checkout, the customer selects Wero, is redirected to their banking or Wero app, authenticates the payment — and the merchant receives confirmation in real time.

The banking partners behind Wero

EPI Company, which operates Wero, is backed by a consortium of European banks and payment providers. According to bank and partner communications, the 16 shareholders include: BFCM, BNP Paribas, Groupe BPCE, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, DSGV (Sparkassen), ING, KBC Group, La Banque Postale, Nexi, Société Générale, Worldline, as well as Belfius, DZ Bank, and other institutions. According to EPI, the consortium represents between 75 and 85 percent of bank customers in Germany, France, and the Benelux countries; EPI also acquired the Dutch payment solutions iDEAL and Payconiq in 2023.

At the operational level, around 50 major banks and banking groups across Europe have now joined Wero’s P2P function according to Mollie, with further integrations in preparation. In the Netherlands, Wero is expected to replace the established iDEAL in the medium term.