Wero: the brand is still little known, but it has every chance of quickly becoming part of your daily life. This is the name of the new European payment method, ready to do battle with the American giants Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Apple Pay or Google Pay. When is the launch? What will it be used for? How does it work? Here are the answers to your questions.
This new instant payment solution has been in preparation within the company for 4 years.European Payments Initiative (EPI), a company created by around fifteen banks on the continent. Objective: develop a solution capable of ensuring the sovereignty of the EU in matters of payments, a sector under very strong influence of non-European players.
The initial project was to create a European card payment network, competing with Visa and Mastercard. EPI ady to give up, due to lack of sufficient support from the Union’s banks. Plan B is a mobile application of payment – what we call a wallet -, a sort of European PayPal.
Well, this wallet is now ready! EPI has confirmed to MoneyVox that Wero will be launched in France early July 2024 in a first bank. The others will follow from September 2024.
Obviously, this imminent launch raises a lot of questions. What exactly will Wero be used for? How will it work? Here is what we can say about it today.
What types of payments can you use Wero for?
On this point, no suspense. Wero will ultimately allow you to perform 3 payment types:
- of the so-called ptop paymentsof particular particular;
- of the online payments for invoices or purchases made on merchant sites, including recurring payments and deferred payments;
- of the so-called proximity paymentsin payment for a service provided by a professional or for a good purchased in a brick-and-mortar business, including payments requiring pre-authorization, for example at service station machines.
In short, EPI has the clear desire to cover all use cases of the bank card. At start-up, however, only individual payment will be available. Online payment is promised for mid-2025. As for local payment, it will be tested and put into service during 2025, and launched on a large scale in 2026, indicates EPI.
How will payment take place?
Let’s look under the hood… Wero payments will be made directly from bank account bank account. No need, therefore, to add a bank card or sign a direct debit mandate. The European wallet is in fact based on the architecture deployed since 2017 for instant SEPA transferswhich allow you to send money to another bank account in less than 10 seconds, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
For the small payments between individualsthe experience will be close to that offered today by Paylib among friends: the payer will be able to designate the beneficiary thanks to his telephone numberby going to the contacts saved in your mobile or entering this number directly.
Wero will, however, enrich this experience by offering, in a second step, two other identification methods: email address and QR Code. The experience should then be quite close to that of PayPal. Wallet n1 allows each user to generate a personal QR Code which, once scanned, allows them to be designated as the beneficiary of the payment.
The QR Code will also be the payment technology favored by Wero. It will also be used for online payments. On the payment page of the merchant site, simply choose the Wero option and scan the QR code displayed on the screen with your mobile to finalize the transaction. A simpler procedure, therefore, than payment by bank card, which often requires completing name, first name, card number, expiry date, etc.
The experience will be similar for proximity payments, except that professionals and merchants who accept Wero will display the QR Code on the screen of their mobile, their payment terminal or their cash register. Even on a simple piece of paper. Very different, therefore, from Apple Pay, which allows you to pay by simply bringing your mobile close to the payment terminal. But EPI believes in it: The QR code is experiencing rapid growth in Europe, and its use has become widespread, particularly among the younger generation, who have significant prescribing power.
Contactless payment: the unexpected benefits of the QR Code
How will enrollment work to use Wero?
It will be quite simple. For those who will use Wero via their bank’s application, it will be enough toaccept the general conditions of use (CGU) of the new service at the time of the first payment. A step that will only be necessary to send money, not to receive it.
On the Wero application, enrollment will consist of accepting the T&Cs and link your bank account to the wallet. Validation by strong authentication will then be necessary.
Will all merchants accept Wero?
This is what is at stake to avoid making a pschitt: EPI will have to convince merchants to add Wero to the already long list of accepted payment methods. The company has a few arguments for this.
The first: the pricing structure. Accepting a Wero payment will not be free for merchants, who will have to pay payment system access fees deployed by EPI and a commission pays the payer’s bank, based on the model of the interchange commission for bank card payments. EPI recreates a model here the old one, in which the bank which is the origin of the payment of the funds, the one which takes the risks, receives part of the money invoiced to the merchant, notes Guillaume Yribarren, deputy director of consulting activity at Galitt. Wero is therefore an opportunity for banks to generate income, particularly to finance their infrastructure. This pricing, however, is promised to be more transparent and attractive than most other EPI solutions.
The second: real time. When a merchant accepts a card payment, he does not immediately receive the money, which does not arrive in his account until the next day or two. With Wero, this credit will be immediate.
In which countries will you be able to pay with Wero?
The objective is clear: Wero aims to become the reference for consumers and merchants across Europe in terms of mobile payment, explained EPI MoneyVox. In short, create a pan-European wallet, usable in as many countries as possible.
It remains to make this ambition a reality. Not all countries immediately show the same appetite for the project. The Spanish banks present at the origin of the project have, for example, withdrawn from it. It must be said that Spain already has a local wallet, Bizumwhich found its audience.
Initially, Wero will therefore be usable in Francefrom July in one bank and in September in the others. Germany will follow closely, with deployment expected at the beginning of July, during the football euro, specifies EPI. Then will come Belgium, probably in September. It is acquired that the Netherlands will be next on the list, a date to be specified. And the others? Mystery.
Will you need to download a new application?
Not necessarily. Like Paylib among friends, Wero will be available in the mobile application of participating banks. At least in the majority of them. Most banks prefer that the customer stays in their mobile banking application, where they see their balance and their entries, explains Guillaume Yribarren. There will be at least one exception: La Banque Postale, which will migrate from Paylib Wero next October, has chosen to direct its users to the application offered by EPI.
Indeed, unlike what happens with Paylib, the user will have an alternative: the possibility of downloading a dedicated Wero application in the iPhone and Android stores. It will be available from September, EPI announces.
Which banks will offer Wero?
Currently, 14 European banks and 2 payment service providers are part of the EPI consortium. There we find the main French banking groups:
- BNP Paribas
- BPCE (Popular Banks and Savings Banks)
- Credit Agricole
- Credit Mutuel
- The postal bank
- General Society.
If you are a customer of these brands or their subsidiaries, you should therefore be able to use Wero from September or October. If, on the other hand, you are a customer of a small independent bank or an online bank, you will probably have to wait before being able to use the wallet.
Will Wero replace Paylib?
Yes, Wero is called to replace, term, Paylib among friends, the payment service between individuals of French banks, which counts around thirty million registered. The transition, however, will not happen overnight.
EPI confirmed to us that it had collaborated with Paylib to set up a transition mechanism which makes it possible to organize the temporary coexistence of the two solutions. Thus, during this transition period, Wero users will be able to send money to a beneficiary on Paylib if their bank has not yet migrated to Wero.
What will happen to Paylib’s other feature, contactless mobile payment in stores, which is not part of Wero’s plans? It will not disappear, but will be offered under the brand of partner banks by the start of next year, explains Paylib MoneyVox. Clearly, consumers who pay with Paylib in store will be able to continue to do so, but no longer under the Paylib brand, which is expected to disappear at the start of 2025.
Will Wero replace the bank card?
This seems very improbable. Wero will be added to the wide range of electronic payment methods already available to consumers for their everyday purchases, the most popular of which, by far, is today the bank card. The whole challenge will be to find your place there. This will involve a communication effort, in order to raise awareness of the brand, but also through payment experiences that are simpler and more efficient than its competitors.
One thing is certain: history shows that payment uses evolve very slowly. Contactless payment by bank card or mobile, for example, took more than 10 years to convince the general public. Wero will therefore have to be patient.