Marios Pitsillidis, APM Operations Lead, payabl.
For years, the European payments landscape has been a patchwork of localised successes. We’ve seen incredible adoption with Bizum in Spain, iDEAL | Wero in the Netherlands, and MB WAY in Portugal. Each one works well in their respective country, but comes with a common limitation — their reach stops at the border.
That’s now changing. Bancomat, Bizum, Wero, SIBS – MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay announced the European Network for Payments (ENP), a joint entity running a shared interoperability hub between their solutions. Collectively, these methods already serve over 130 million users across 13 European countries, representing more than 70% of the EU and Norway’s population.
For me, this is the most important thing to happen to Wero since it launched.
The numbers behind the momentum
Wero’s reach across Europe is evident, accommodating payment preferences across multiple countries. It went live for peer-to-peer payments in Belgium, France and Germany in 2024. In its first year, it reached 43.5 million registered users and transacted roughly €7.5 billion. The European Payments Initiative (EPI) now records 60 million users. Those are massive numbers for a wallet that's barely two years old.
Users alone don't make a payment method, though. Broader acceptance does. That side is moving too. More than 48,000 merchants in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have now processed a Wero transaction. In Germany, shoppers already pay with Wero at Lidl, dm, Decathlon and Eventim. In France, Air France, Fnac Darty and Orange have signed on. Luxembourg is moving Payconiq users onto Wero this year. iDEAL | Wero in the Netherlands follows by 2027.
The Netherlands and Luxembourg expansions bring at least 15 million consumers onto Wero. Acquired by EPI in 2023, iDEAL (now iDEAL | Wero) — which accounts for more than 70% of Dutch ecommerce — was always planned to transition. As a result, one of Europe's most ingrained checkout preferences is moving onto a broader network that works interoperably across multiple borders.
Why the ENP changes things
Until now, Wero's reach depended on how many markets EPI could launch in, one at a time. The ENP takes a different approach. The scheme allows national solutions to keep their own branding and app experience, and connect through a common layer built on European instant payment standards.
This means a Spanish Bizum user and a Dutch Wero user will eventually pay across borders without either of them switching apps. For me, that's how it should work: people pay with the wallet they trust, and the network does the rest.
I'd add one caveat though, the rollout is phased. Cross-border, peer-to-peer payments come first, with ecommerce and in-store payments added in later phases. Merchants shouldn't expect overnight coverage, but they should account for it in upcoming roadmaps.
What this means at checkout
Alongside the sovereignty headlines, I’ve found that three things matter to merchants when it comes to APMs:
Fast settlements are the first. Wero runs on SEPA Instant, meaning funds land in seconds, any time of day. This fundamentally changes how businesses manage cash flow, especially in sectors with tight working capital.
The second is cost. Against cards, Wero skips interchange and scheme fees, but don't assume Wero will save you money. Compare it with the method it replaces in each market. The stronger case for Wero lies elsewhere— real-time settlement, cross-border reach and one connection instead of several.
Finally, conversion. Shoppers pay inside the app they already use to manage their money. No card details are required and no extra friction is added. Local preferences have always driven conversion: payabl.’s How Europe likes to pay report found that 60% of ecommerce transactions made in Europe use alternative payment methods, while 53% of European consumers are willing to switch to new payment methods for a faster or more convenient checkout.
Led by Wero’s emerging dominance, the ENP gives these local preferences cross-border reach plus the interoperability that a more unified Pan-European card strategy needs.
My take on the announcement
From a payments strategy perspective, both merchants and acquirers have traditionally dealt with fragmented domestic schemes. This meant more development and operational overhead: separate APIs, individual settlement flows and individual checkout components.
With the ENP interoperability framework, these challenges are addressed. It enables us to deliver Pan-European coverage through a unified integration and operational model. Merchants integrate to one API, the checkout dynamically routes to the shopper’s native app, and the underlying SEPA Instant rails handle settlement instantly. We build once and the network handles the rest.
Where payabl. fits
If you sell to European consumers, consider adding Wero, Bizum, MB WAY and more on your 2027 roadmap. payabl. offers Wero at checkout through one integration. With Wero, our outlook is simple: the merchants who add it now are preparing themselves for when the network expands, while the ones who wait will be catching up to the competition.
My team's job at payabl. is to remove the admin; Separate contracts, separate integrations and separate settlement flows for every market that slows merchants down and keeps them from focusing on expansion and growth.
The ENP pushes the industry in the same direction. Fewer schemes to manage and wider reach, all from a single connection.