The pan-European digital wallet Wero offers more than speed and efficiency. It’s creating choice, reducing costs, and building loyalty in a highly competitive market.
This approach has coincided with an exciting new era, where cheaper, more efficient payments are possible at scale.
Now, account-to-account (A2A) payments are reshaping how businesses and consumers transact, bypassing card networks and other intermediaries to cut out interchange fees and deliver near-instant settlement. Here’s why:
Drive the next generation of A2A payments
Once considered a niche concept with limited use cases, advancements in open banking technology and real-time infrastructure have pushed A2A payment methods into the mainstream. With A2A payments projected to grow from 60 billion transactions in 2024 to 186 billion by 2029, the shift away from traditional card rails is well underway — and expected to accelerate rapidly.
Increased global adoption has revealed the A2A model’s considerable potential. Brazil’s Pix, for example, is now estimated to serve more than 175 million business and personal users, while India’s UPI processes billions of transactions each month.
Wero, the digital wallet developed by European Payments Initiative (EPI), is now aiming to drive the next generation of A2A payments across the continent. Wero provides European merchants with an opportunity to future-proof their payments and ensure they remain relevant in a shifting ecosystem.
Wero is more than simply another A2A payments option
Backed by Europe’s largest banks and built on SEPA Instant, Wero can be considered the first truly pan-European wallet.
Payments, including cross-border transactions, clear in less than 10 seconds, offering a lower-cost alternative to cards that helps merchants to tackle cart abandonment through a frictionless checkout.
Wero aspires to bring sovereignty to the unified payment market, and better address the needs of consumers, professionals and merchants in all European markets.
EPI plans to integrate national payment systems into its cross-border ecosystem. iDEAL | Wero in the Netherlands has already transitioned, while Belgium's Bancontact by Payconiq is in the process of transitioning to Wero through smooth, carefully-managed migrations, which will take place across 2026 and 2027. More markets will be rolled out in the coming years.
These requirements should be considered as more than a compliance box tick; they mean merchants can tap into immediate, large-scale adoption. With more than 50 million users already active, including those from the Netherlands that have used iDEAL (now iDEAL | Wero), Wero launches with critical mass and an established customer base.
It builds upon the groundwork laid by the EuroPA alliance and European Payments Initiative, who together are bringing more unified options to the market.
Meeting enhanced customer expectations
Momentum will be further fuelled by evolving consumer behaviour, with A2A payments fast becoming the backbone of the booming global digital economy.
Consumers are clear — they want speed, convenience, and trust. Research from payabl.’s recent State of European Checkouts report reveals that 53% of European consumers are willing to switch to new payment methods for a faster or more convenient checkout. The top three drivers for selecting which payment method to use are convenience (20%), speed (18%), and security (18%), outweighing habit (9%).
Europe now has the opportunity to deliver on those demands at scale. Integrating with Wero gives the continent’s merchants a timely new way to offer instant, secure A2A payments that customers can trust, while the EPI has high ambitions to cement Wero as Europe’s number one wallet and its logo will come to symbolise an easier way to pay.
How to adopt Wero with payabl.
At payabl., we see Wero as the start of a new payments era — one in which Europe can set a new benchmark for seamless, secure, and inclusive commerce.
As a licensed member of the EPI and an official Wero acquirer, payabl. provides merchants with a direct integration and a dedicated support team to facilitate smooth onboarding.
Take advantage of pre-built, ready to deploy integrations and APIs with Wero, making sure you can take your place in the first wave of merchants accepting Wero payments.
Partner with payabl.,one of Europe’s first Wero-enabled payment providers, to offer consumers the convenience they desire while transforming your business. Slash processing costs, reduce exposure to chargebacks, and expand your footprint across Europe before the competition arrives.