Brussels, 19th November 2024  

European Payments Initiative (EPI), the European-grown player committed to offering a sovereign payment alternative to all consumers in Europe, today announced the official launch of its mobile wallet1 and instant account-to-account payment solution, Wero in Belgium, for all its shareholding member banks. Users can now send or receive money by scanning or generating Wero QR codes. This launch follows the successful rollouts in Germany and France, which kicked off respectively in July and at the end of September. EPI’s ambition is simple: to become a single, secure digital wallet bringing together all payment functionalities in one payment solution for all Europeans.

In Belgium, Wero is already integrated into the banking applications of EPI’s member banks: Belfius, BNP Paribas Fortis, Fintro, Hello bank!, ING, KBC and CBC.

The deployment calendar of every bank member and the features available are detailed below:

Users will be able to transfer and receive money simply and instantly to and from third parties, account to account, either through a payment QR code or directly towards people in the contact list of their smartphone for free.

"One of Wero’s strengths is its ease of use. Wero is already integrated into the mobile apps of participating Belgian banks. So, their customers can benefit directly from its many advantages and pay or receive money in a large geographical area, without having to change their payment habits or install a new app"

Turkan Goktas, Head of Marketing Payments, Belfius.

Cross-border payments to contacts in France and Germany, for a start, will also be automatically integrated. The Netherlands and Luxembourg will follow in a subsequent step.

"We are convinced the all-in-one payment solution will bring a strong competitive advantage to leverage business in Europe. Wero will become the one payment solution with one recognisable brand that customers trust and can use in both offline and online environments. In addition, the banking app will become for the consumers the only app needed for any spending in the participant countries"

Amaury Vanthournout, Global Product Lead Payments, ING Belgium

Wero’s current and future functionalities

Next to payments to friends and families, or to professionals, Wero's services will be enhanced with new features from 2025 onwards, such as subscription payments and management (for Streamz, Spotify, etc.), deposits (for car rentals, hotel reservations, etc.), instalments (down-payments in 3/5/10 times), event-dependent payments (pay at delivery), usage-dependent payments (reserving maximum amount before fuelling/charging the car), consumer-present future payments (one-click payments), consumer-absent future payments (electricity supply, city transport, etc.), no-show payments (in a restaurant, a hotel, etc.), or a combination of some or all of the features mentioned above.

"KBC always plays a leading role in innovations, certainly in the field of payments. Customers expect to see a payment on their account immediately. Wero is the solution that meets this expectation. On top of that, Wero will soon also allow online payments, which is definitely a strong asset for a European payment method"

Ivo De Meersman, General Manager Payments & Cards Belgium, KBC