Europe builds payment rails

Europe is not launching a single new European Union state payment network. It is backing a bank-led buildout around Wero and instant bank transfers to cut reliance on Visa and Mastercard. (ecb.europa.eu) The core project is the European Payments Initiative, or EPI, which says it was launched by 16 banks and financial companies to build a wallet called Wero and a unified account-to-account payment system. Wero went live in Germany on July 2, 2024 for person-to-person transfers, according to EPI. (epicompany.eu) (wero-wallet.eu) EPI said in September 2025 that Wero was already live for person-to-person payments and would add online retail payments first in Germany at the end of 2025, then in Belgium and France in 2026. Industry tracking sites say the service is now live in Germany, France and Belgium, with rollout under way in the Netherlands and Luxembourg. (epicompany.eu) (banking.vision) The push comes after years of warnings from European officials that the bloc’s card market depends too heavily on foreign networks. The European Central Bank said international card schemes handled about 61% of euro-area card transactions in 2022, while national schemes kept losing share. (ecb.europa.eu) The European Central Bank has tied that dependence to “strategic autonomy and resilience” in retail payments, and it has paired that goal with support for instant payments and the digital euro project. In plain terms, Europe wants more payments to move directly from one bank account to another on infrastructure controlled inside Europe. (ecb.europa.eu) That is where the European Union’s instant-payments law fits in. Regulation (EU) 2024/886 entered into force on April 8, 2024 and requires payment providers to make euro instant credit transfers broadly available, with funds arriving within 10 seconds. (eur-lex.europa.eu) (dnb.nl) The effort widened on February 2, 2026, when EPI signed a memorandum with EuroPA Alliance members Bancomat, Bizum, SIBS-MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay. The companies said the deal aims to connect leading European payment apps into a sovereign, interoperable network. (epicompany.eu) (abnamro.com) Wero is also moving into existing national systems instead of replacing them overnight. Dutch payment system iDEAL said in October 2025 that it would begin rebranding to iDEAL | Wero in 2026 as part of a gradual transition to the European wallet. (ideal.nl) Visa and Mastercard still have the scale advantage. EPI says Wero is meant to cover person-to-person, online and in-store payments, but Euronews reported in March 2026 that the project’s own target is to become a full alternative to U.S. networks by 2027. (epicompany.eu) (euronews.com) For merchants, the practical change is not a sudden ban on American cards. It is a growing need to add another rail — direct bank payments through Wero and allied systems — as Europe turns payment sovereignty from a policy slogan into checkout software, bank connections and compliance work. (epicompany.eu) (ecb.europa.eu)