What is Wero?

Wero works as an instant credit transfer from the payer's bank account to the payee's bank account, started in a banking app or in the Wero app. The payer enters a phone number, and the money arrives "in less than 10 seconds", at any hour and on weekends (Wero, send money). The account is debited as soon as the payment is validated. The Wero site says that payments between people are free of charge.

As a payment system, Wero follows what EPI describes as a four-corner model of banks, consumers, acquirers and merchants, built on the existing instant payment infrastructure between accounts. Wero is no credit card. It needs no card and no IBAN, and it grants no credit: the amount comes straight from the current account. In a Belgian store the customer scans a Wero QR code on the payment terminal and pays from the bank account.

Wero payments are used between people in all Wero markets and, step by step, for online and in-store purchases. EPI gives this timeline in its releases:

EPI's member banks represent more than 75% of the retail banking customers in Belgium, France and Germany (EPI, members).

Wero is international within its markets: users can pay across borders between the participating Wero countries with the same app. In two of the Wero countries in Europe, it replaces a national solution. On September 2, 2026 EPI announced the last phase of the move from Payconiq to Wero in Luxembourg. The Payconiq platform ends on September 30, 2026, and old Payconiq QR codes work in the Wero app until the end of the year (EPI, September 2, 2026).

Wero is the successor of both Payconiq and iDEAL. In the Netherlands, iDEAL is to move to Wero by 2027. EPI also has interoperability agreements that are to connect Wero users over time with payment solutions in Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Nordic countries.

Wero is a private wallet that moves money between commercial bank accounts, and the digital euro is a planned form of central bank money.

The ECB answers the question for European private solutions in general. It writes that the digital euro could be "the 'fall-back' that enables full pan-European reach while preserving market access for domestic or regional schemes", for example through co-badging in existing wallets (ECB, digital euro FAQ). More in What is the digital euro?

In Germany, Wero is live for payments between people and for online shopping. The EPI website shows the Sparkassen, the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken and Deutsche Bank among its members. Deutsche Bank has its registered office in Frankfurt am Main (Deutsche Bank imprint). BaFin supervises the German banks that offer Wero; EPI holds its own license from the National Bank of Belgium.

In Austria, EPI named the country on September 2, 2026 as a coming Wero market, without a date. The FMA supervises Austrian banks. None of the EPI or Wero pages read on September 29, 2026 names Switzerland as a Wero market. FINMA supervises Swiss banks, and instant payments in Swiss francs run through the SIC system of the Swiss National Bank. This page gives no legal advice.