The European Payments Initiative’s (EPI) planned competitor to Mastercard and Visa completed its first ever online transaction over the Christmas period.
Bundesliga football club 1. FC Kaiserslautern, and its acquiring partner VR Payments and online banking app VR Bank, subsidiaries of Germany’s second largest bank DZ Bank, integrated EPI’s unified payments system Wero in a proof-of-concept trial. Several transactions were conducted on the site between November and December.
This marks a key milestone for EPI, which has been eyeing up the launch of a unified payments system as an alternative to Mastercard and Visa in Europe for some time. The project has faced some setbacks, however, having been halted in 2022 after a number of EPI members left the organisation.
Three years down the line, the EPI seems to have regained substantial ground in its unified payments roadmap. The pan-European payments scheme plans a wider launch for its platform later this year, encompassing a number of use cases, initially with one off payments, with ‘more complex models’ added over time.
Martina Weimert, CEO of EPI, said: “This POC is another key step towards our retail market entry into commercial payments, as foreseen. The aim was to prove our solution is working well end-to-end and is as simple, secure, and effective as we’ve been advocating for.
“I would like to heartfully thank DZ BANK’s subsidiary, VR Payment, Atruvia and the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken involved, as well as the 1. FC Kaiserslautern teams for their involvement in this POC.
“Without their commitment, this success would not have been possible. Now we are entering the next phase and preparing for the broad introduction in the coming months.”
EPI plans to conduct further trials of the Wero payments platform over H1 2025 with an official launch planned in Germany over the summer. Launches are then planned in Belgium in late 2025 and France in early 2026.
Following each individual national launch, retailers in all three countries will be able to use and offer the solution to customers. These three nations have been identified as the ‘three Wero pioneer countries’ – but the EPI plans to extend beyond these, with unspecified launches planned in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
“One of Wero’s key advantages is its customer-centric approach, offering enhanced usability for retail customers while ensuring easy deployment and processing for merchants,” said Carlos Gómez-Sáez, Chairman of the Management Board of VR Payment.
“This Proof-of-Concept clearly demonstrated both benefits. As the acquirer of the Genossenschaftliche FinanzGruppe, we are proud to contribute to this significant step toward the e-commerce payment solution launch.”
