Supported by a consortium of European banks, the Wero payment service is making its official debut in France, with a first brick dedicated to payments between individuals which will gradually replace Paylib in the French landscape. Wero does not hide its ambition to eventually become a true global payment service on a European scale.
With 35 million registered users, 15 million regular users and 6 billion euros in transactions per year, the peer-to-peer payment service Paylib will soon bow out. This Franco-French initiative is giving way to a new project whose ambitions are, this time, European.
Called Wero, in France it brings together the banking establishments of the BNP Paribas, BPCE (Banque Populaire et Caisse d’Epargne), Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, La Banque Postale and Société Générale groups. All have announced a rapid deployment of Wero through their own banking applications, with the exception of La Banque Postale, which will offer the service to its customers through the application published by Wero.
The announced deployment schedule is as follows:
- BNP Paribas: from October 24, 2024
- Groupe BPCE: from September 2 to October 2, 2024
- Crédit Agricole: September 26, 2024 (already available, excluding LCL clients)
- Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale: from September 25 to November 6, 2024
- Crédit Mutuel Arkéa: January 2025
- La Banque Postale: October 28, 2024
- Société Générale: from October 24, 2024 for SG bank
Wero, successor to Paylib
In all these applications, Wero will gradually replace the brick dedicated to Paylib for all money transfers between individuals. The service, which we were able to test through the Crédit Agricole application on iOS, requires specific registration. It offers the sending and receiving of money with the choice of an email address or a mobile phone number as an identifier.
The user journey is classic: selection of the recipient via the address book or addition of the telephone number, choice of the amount, validation of the payment. “ You can make a wero transfer within the limit of the following ceilings: a ceiling of 500 euros per single transfer and the ceilings applicable to all of your transfers specified in the specific conditions of your account agreement », specify the T&Cs distributed by Crédit Agricole.
Use of the service requires that the personal data of both the sender and the recipient are entered in the “wero directory”. “ If you no longer wish to use the wero service to receive and send wero transfers, you can deactivate the service directly in the My Bank application. Your data will then be deleted from the wero directory », add the T&Cs.
« Paylib and Wero are compatible: you can send money via Wero to someone who still uses Paylib and vice versa », reassures the Paylib site.
But what happens when the recipient is not a Wero or Paylib user? The application tells us this and we cannot make a transfer, there is no magic. Instead, Wero invites the user to make a transfer via IBAN, in the traditional way. To function and be successful, the user base must therefore grow, which the application will attempt to achieve with an international reach to reach a critical mass.
In France, Germany, Belgium, soon in the Netherlands
According to its supporters, Wero must exceed Paylib’s reach on at least two axes. The first is, unsurprisingly, that of geographic scope. Already available for a few weeks in Germany, the service is making its debut in Belgium, where all member banks should have deployed it by the end of the year. Luxembourg and the Netherlands will follow soon », assures European Payments Initiative (EPI), the Belgian company responsible for operating Wero and bringing together European banking players around the project and its governance.
Established in the summer of 2020, EPI has several representatives of partner banks on its board of directors, such as Yves Tyrode, general director in charge of digital and payments at BPCE. The company made two acquisitions at the end of 2023: Currence iDEAL in the Netherlands and Payconiq International in Luxembourg. Two providers of technical payment solutions, which should contribute to making Wero a “unique and secure mobile payment wallet”.
“Wero is unique. It is a state-of-the-art, sovereign solution, designed by and for Europeans, which makes it possible to offer all types of payments, starting with person-to-person payments, while integrating the promise of immediacy and banking security. We arrive at the right time in the era of digital payments, offering the solution that Europeans expect for their payments », Describes Martina Weimert, CEO of EPI, in a press release.
A sovereign solution designed as a European alternative to large payment networks such as Visa, Mastercard or PayPal? The reference to the calendar also suggests a desire to compete with Apple Pay type systems, now forced open to competition on the Old Continent due to the DMA.
EPI and the French partner banks are currently planning on a roadmap which foresees the arrival, from 2025, of Wero among 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 », says EPI.
