EPI joins nexo-standards to empower Wero’s pan-European ambition through interoperable payment acceptance
EPI becomes a member of nexo-standards, reflecting its commitment to open standards and greater European payment choice.
Brussels, October 8th, 2026 - European Payments Initiative (EPI), the pan-European payment scheme to create a sovereign and unified payment alternative for Europe, has joined nexo-standards. The membership supports EPI’s ambition to make Wero practical for merchants to accept across European markets thanks to a wide support of payment providers and acceptance technologies.
nexo-standards develops open payment specifications and messaging protocols that enable payment acceptance systems to communicate using a common framework based on ISO 20022. EPI’s membership confirms its ambition to have Wero supported on a broad range of acceptance infrastructure and will allow it to follow developments in the use of these standards for account-to-account payments with Wero.
With 60 million users, Wero’s ambition is to become an everyday payment choice for consumers and merchants across Europe. Delivering on that ambition requires acceptance infrastructure that can accommodate European account-to-account payments across different markets and technical environments.
Open standards can help address this fragmentation by simplifying connections between payment systems and supporting the integration of new payment methods. Joining nexo-standards aligns with EPI’s approach to support compatible acceptance solutions and following the evolution of standards for account-to-account payments.
“Europe’s payment ambitions need to translate into practical choices for consumers and businesses. For Wero, that means building a European solution that merchants can accept across different markets and payment environments and offered by allbanks across the continent. Open standards and interoperability help create those conditions. Our membership with nexo standards reflects this approach and our ambition to bring greater European payment choice to everyday commerce.” Martina Weimert, CEO of EPI.
Wero contactless payment feature, thanks to QR code scanning already provides a practical illustration of this approach. A demonstration presented at NRF Europe in Paris in September showed how Wero payments can be supported on payment terminals with a nexo-based acceptance environment. Such use cases will be further developed as part of the in-store payment roll-out across markets in 2027, which will include too NFC integration in the long-run.
About nexo-standards
Based in Brussels, nexo-standards brings together payment industry specialists within an international non-profit association. It develops and promotes common standards and related services to help merchant acceptance infrastructure, acquiring platforms, retail systems and terminal management solutions work together.
About EPI
EPI (or European Payments Initiative) is supported by 18 European banks and payment service providers.
Beyond the shareholders, over 50 institutions in Europe are now members of EPI. They have joined forces with a common goal: to offer a unified mobile payment service, to all European companies and citizens, Wero. EPI intends to enable European consumers and merchants and to carry out all types of retail transactions simply, via a resolutely sovereign digital wallet.
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About Wero
Based on instant account-to-account (A2A) payments, Wero further streamlines payments in Europe by eliminating intermediaries in the payment chain and the associated additional costs. Wero already supports payments between individuals, and will shortly unveil payments to professionals (P2Pro). Wero has been live for P2P payments in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, currently serving 60 million users. For retail payments, Wero is live in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg with progressive roll-out in France throughout 2026. The migration from iDEAL to Wero in the Netherlands is expected to involve around 15 million consumers, by 2027, along with the expansion into Austria, and being one of the founding member of European Network for Payments (ENP) further supporting the ambition to become a pan-European payment solution for up to 130M users across 13 countries. Point-of-sale payments are already live in Belgium and Luxembourg with further rollouts planned across other markets. Additional value-added services will include merchant loyalty programmes, recurring payments and subscription management.
Find out more at wero-wallet.eu and follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Wero’s LinkedIn