Worldpay has officially joined the European Payments Initiative (EPI) as a Principal Member, aligning with its mission to build a unified, pan-European digital payments ecosystem.
As a Principal Member of EPI, which is developing “Wero”, a European digital wallet and real-time account-to-account payment solution designed to compete with global card schemes and big tech payment platforms, Worldpay will play a central role in enabling merchants to accept Wero payments, help expand adoption of a pan-European payment standard, and support direct bank-to-bank (A2A) transactions across Europe.
What Is EPI and Wero?
The European Payments Initiative (EPI) is a unified digital payment service backed by 16 European banks and payment service providers. Its aim is to allow European consumers and merchants to make next-generation payments for all types of person-to-person transfers and retail transactions via a digital wallet called Wero, based on instant account-to-account payments that eliminate intermediaries in the payment chain.
Wero is a European mobile payment system intended to replace fragmented instant payment landscape of the EU presented by Giropay in Germany, Paylib in France, Payconiq in Belgium and Luxembourg, and iDEAL in the Netherlands. The service was launched on 2 July 2024, and its name is a portmanteau of the English “we” and “euro.”
One of its main aims is to achieve greater independence from the market power of American payment service providers with their global service coverage. This argument of required payment sovereignty was recently disputed by Mastercard representatives, who believe that the global card networks should be viewed as an integral part of the continent’s financial infrastructure rather than external providers. Nevertheless, the unification of European payment continues.
In February 2026, EPI announced that the number of registered Wero users exceeded 50 million. In its first year, total transaction volume exceeded €7.5 billion, with steady growth driven by peer-to-peer use cases like paying friends and settling second-hand purchases. At ING Germany alone, more than 500,000 Wero wallets have been activated by customers in the first six months since launch.
By end of 2026, EPI will cover e-commerce, m-commerce, and add omni-channel payments including first point-of-sale and invoice payments. Wero also offers higher consumer trust since it is integrated into banks’ own apps, is fully GDPR-compliant, and features a user-friendly interface requiring only a mobile phone number.
What EPI Principal Members Do
The Principal Member status is the top tier of EPI membership for acquirers and payment service providers. It means:
As a Principal Member, the company plays a central role in connecting merchants to the Wero payment network, enabling them to accept Wero transactions directly through the platform.
Through Principal Membership, a company provides its customers with the most comprehensive route to access Wero via sponsored associate membership, payment facilitator access, or as a technical gateway.
While EPI participant banks bring the users and provide the customer accounts, PSPs and acquirers enable the technical side of payments and ensure transactions work smoothly, Worldpay contributes global merchant scale and distribution as a Principal Member. Its involvement extends the European Payments Initiative beyond a bank-led effort into a broader, more globally connected commerce ecosystem. That is an important step in strengthening its position to compete with established card networks like Visa and Mastercard.
After Global Payments completed its acquisition of Worldpay in January, the combined entity serves more than 6 million merchant locations globally, enabling approximately 94 billion transactions annually across more than 175 countries, and processing $3.7 trillion in annual payment volume.
In practical terms for this particular pure-play merchant solutions firm, Worldpay‘s merchant clients across Europe will now be able to offer Wero as a checkout payment option, without needing separate integration work.
