European banks have already defined their plan to depend less on Visa and Mastercard

Bizum It is a sensational tool for online payments in Spain, but it has a problem: it is not international. Or at least not much. International online payments in the European Union depend largely on two big names: Visa and Mastercard. There is no European system Made in Europe that allows the rapid shipping of money, but it is something that the European payments initiative (EPI) wants to solve. His proposal already has a name, Wero, and his plan is as follows.

Context. The European Payment Initiative It was founded in 2020 by 16 banking entities such as BBVA, Santander, Deustche Bank, Grupo ING, Unicredit and BNP Paribas. Its objective is to create a payment system and a European interbank network or what is the same, a platform capable of competing against Visa, Mastercard or PayPal. These are of American origin, so the idea of ​​EPI is to promote the independence and sovereignty of payments. For members “it is no longer a future project, but a need facing all European countries,” as they have exposed in a letter.

The problem. That there are many local solutions, but none at European level made in Europe. For example, if we think of payments and money shipments between individuals in Spain and Andorra we have Bizum, but in Italy they have Bancomat, in Portugal they use MB Way, in Sweden it has Swish, in Switzerland they use twint and in other places, such as Germany and Austria, the use of PayPal It is widespread. The proposal of EPI with Wero is “to respond to this challenge through a unique payment solution, all in one, instantaneous and paneuropea, capable of covering over time all cases of payment use that consumers and professionals require.”

A second, Wero? That is the name that this “European bizum” received in September 2023. It makes a certain sense: the word consists of “We” (us) and has similar pronunciation to “euro.” In addition, he approaches the word “Vero”, which is “truth” in Latin. He threw himself First in Germany Back in July last year, in France in September and in Belgium in November. Wero is integrated into the banks of the banks, so the experience is, for all purposes, nailed to Bizum’s.

Image | Wero

And what does it propose? According to exposes the EPI“A unique, safe and avant -garde paneurpea payment platform, with multipurparacities, which can work in all European markets for local and cross -border transactions.” That is, a kind of visa and bizum of Europe for Europe. Although it is not well known yet, Wero has the endorsement of the European Commission and 40 million registered users. In addition, it is already fully functional in both P2P and P2Pro transactions (individuals to companies).

However, the reality is that the deployment is being slow. It is normal to be a project of these characteristics, however. For summer of 2025, the EPI plans to launch the payments in electronic commerce in Germany and Belgium to later do so in France and the Netherlands “laying the bases and test points for a viable European solution.” At the end of 2026, EPI intends to add the omnicanal payments, payments at the point of sale or in stores and invoices payments. The idea is to use QR codes and NFC technology.

Bizum is international. The efforts are there and Wero is promising. However, and as far as Spain is concerned, it should be noted that Bizum has been international for just a few weeks. At the beginning of the month, Bizum confirmed that it was going to be integrated with Bancomat and MB Way, the payment solutions of Italy and Portugal, respectively. Banco Santander, Abanca and OpenBank already support international shipments. Caixabank, BBVA and Banco Sabadell will do it soon.

Cover image | Wero