Brest, September 30, 2024

The French consumers will be able to send and receive money from account to account in less than 10 seconds, via their banking application and the Wero application. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa will make this innovation available to its customers from January 2025. Wero takes over from Paylib, whose 35 million registered users will be offered the option to simply switch to the new European payment service.

The European Payments Initiative (EPI), which brings together 16 European banks and payment service providers, today announced the launch of Wero: the European instant account-to-account payment solution. It will allow users with a French bank account to send and receive money simply and instantly, using just a phone number or email address.

Wero will eventually consolidate all payment functionalities

The promise of the Wero service is simple: to offer a unique and secure mobile payment wallet ultimately bringing together all the payment functionalities necessary for a user in Europe. Thanks to its integration with member banks, the consumer can use Wero via their usual banking application or via the standalone application developed by EPI. Wero will thus give users, in real time, a complete overview of their expenses and will allow them to centralize all of their payments in a simple and secure manner. It is planned to subsequently integrate new functional developments such as the “Request for money” as well as the generation of individual QR codes allowing you not to transmit your telephone number when paying from person to person.

Wero will be deployed to merchants and e-commerce sites from 2025

Wero aims to integrate new features from 2025, with its deployment to merchants. This will include payment at small merchants from the Wero wallet, and, ultimately, online payment on merchant sites as well as the management of recurring payments linked to subscriptions. Point-of-sale payment at major merchants is also in the wallet's development plans, and testing is planned as early as 2026. Other value-added services, such as Buy Now-Pay Later (installment payments), Integration of merchant loyalty programs, or expense sharing, are also in preparation.

“Wero is part of our vision of an inclusive digital future at the forefront of technological developments.”

Within 3 to 4 years, Wero will be a single European payment wallet offering everyone the ability to take greater control of their finances, simply and securely, while respecting their data privacy and compliance needs. with European regulations. “Wero marks a decisive step for the European payments ecosystem, comments Laurent Jurrius, Director of the Innovation and Operations Department of Crédit Mutuel Arkéa. Crédit Mutuel Arkéa fully supports this initiative which embodies the ambition to offer a sovereign instant payment solution and secure. Wero is part of our vision of an inclusive digital future at the forefront of technological developments. This advancement not only reflects our ability to respond to the changing needs of our customers, but also our pioneering role in terms of technology. banking innovations."

With the service already available in Germany since July 2024, users on both sides of the border will now be able to make cross-border payments between participating banks that have already made the solution available to their customers. In Belgium, all member banks will have deployed it by the end of the year. Luxembourg and the Netherlands will follow soon.