The news
Europe's home-grown payment apps are building a shared network meant to let customers pay across borders without Visa (V) or Mastercard (MA). Payments Dive examined on September 30, 2026 whether the push can dent the US networks' position in Europe.
The plan rests on a memorandum of understanding signed in February 2026 between Wero, operated by EPI Company, and the members of the EuroPA Alliance: Bancomat in Italy, Bizum in Spain, SIBS-MB WAY in Portugal and Vipps MobilePay in the Nordics, according to Trending Topics. Together, the five providers say they reach about 130 million users across 13 European countries, roughly 72% of the population of the EU plus Norway.
The goal is that a Wero user in France could send money to a Bizum user in Spain as easily as a domestic transfer, without switching apps. The rollout starts with person-to-person transfers in 2026 and adds online and in-store merchant payments afterward, with seamless cross-border payments targeted for 2027, Trending Topics reported. EuroPA's founding members already enabled instant transfers among more than 50 million users in Andorra, Italy, Portugal and Spain from March 2025.
Wero itself has about 60 million users, according to Payments Dive, and is backed by 14 major European banks and two large processors. It supports peer-to-peer, person-to-professional and e-commerce payments with chargeback and dispute handling, with limited QR payments in Luxembourg and point-of-sale payments in Belgium. Payments Dive said Wero still handles less than 1% of EU payment volume, while Visa and Mastercard process about two-thirds of euro area card volume.
Analysts at RBC Capital Markets, including Daniel Perlin, wrote that the European Central Bank has been open about wanting to reduce reliance on the largest card networks, citing geopolitical tensions, according to Payments Dive. The ECB plans to launch a digital euro in 2029, which Payments Dive said could provide a universal acceptance platform that helps Wero.
The numbers
- Combined users (company claim)
- About 130 million
- Countries
- 13
- Wero users
- About 60 million (Payments Dive)
- Wero share of EU payments volume
- Less than 1%
- Visa/Mastercard share of euro area card volume
- About two-thirds
- Digital euro target launch
- 2029
Why CEOs should care
For US merchants selling in Europe, acceptance strategy may need to widen. If Wero and the EuroPA apps add online and in-store payments as planned, checkout pages that accept only cards could miss customers who prefer their domestic app. Ask your payment service providers whether they support Wero, Bizum and the other schemes, on what fees, and when cross-border acceptance arrives.
For CFOs, account-to-account payments of this kind typically avoid card interchange, which can lower acceptance costs, though pricing has not been published in the sources we reviewed. Model the effect on blended payment costs and on dispute handling, since Wero says it supports chargebacks.
For investors and boards with exposure to the US networks, the near-term threat is small: Wero handles under 1% of EU volume. The longer-term risk comes from policy, with the ECB openly seeking less reliance on the big card networks and a digital euro planned for 2029.
The bigger picture
Europe has tried to build a homegrown card alternative before. What differs now is the starting base of national apps with tens of millions of users each, a plan to link them rather than replace them, and explicit political backing. Execution remains the test: merchant acceptance, consistent consumer protections across schemes, and a business model that works without interchange income.
What’s next
Watch for the launch date of cross-border person-to-person transfers among the five providers, merchant pricing for shop payments, and how the ECB's digital euro design treats private schemes like Wero.
What “Fact-checked” means
Fact-checking means testing a story’s facts against the evidence before it is published. This story went through at least two separate checks before this version was published.
- What we checked
- Its names, figures, dates, job titles, quotes and who said what were checked against the story’s sources, including its main source where it could be opened. The headline was checked for accuracy and overstatement.
- How
- A first check reviewed the whole story. If it passed, a second, skeptical check went back to the sources to look for mistakes in the most important facts. If a check flagged the story, it was edited to fix the problems found, and a separate re-check then reviewed the whole story again.
- Who
- The checks are made by our newsroom, as steps kept separate from the writing, under rules set by our editor, Hussein Mukhtar. A story the checks still flag is held for the editor, who decides whether it is fixed, published or dropped.
- If something is wrong
- “Fact-checked” does not mean error-free. If a material error is found after publication, we correct the story and add a note saying what changed. Report an error
Companies in this story
