EPI partners with Revolut to expand reach of European digital wallet Wero
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Speaking at Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, Ludovic Francesconi, chief member and strategy officer at EPI, and David Tirado, VP of global business at Revolut, announced that Revolut will join as a member of the EPI scheme.
'Our mission is to create a real European solution, wallet, innovative solution based on instant payment,' Francesconi stated. Wero, which has been available since 2024, provides a localised and convenient payment method for consumers. The platform currently enables account-to-account payments for over 40 million users, and the five markets covered by Wero represent more than 60% of all retail payments in the EU. The Wero wallet will be featured in the Revolut app in July, facilitating seamless payments between Wero account holders.
Tirado emphasised Revolut's commitment to implementing a seamless payments experience for their consumers: 'We are really focusing on getting primacy of wallets. We are focusing on getting our customers to use Revolut every single day for every single payment experience that they have effectively, we think that enabling local payments is something that is really needed and that our users are demanding day after day. We have in the past launched other local payment networks like Bizum in Spain and BLIK. We think that the next evolution of our journey to enable our customers to pay where and how they want, is to partner with Wero.'
Looking ahead, Francesconi outlined Wero's priority to launch e-commerce payments at the end of this year in Germany and Belgium, and in 2026 in France. EPI have acquired e-commerce solutions iDEAL in the Netherlands and Payconiq in Luxembourg, which will be available with Wero. By the end of next year, they aim to offer point of sales as well.
Speaking exclusively to Finextra, Francesconi detailed the drive behind Wero and the EPI roadmap, he outlined their goal to standardise the fragmented payments landscape in Europe and bring sovereignty to payments solutions. He further emphasised the disorganized nature of cross-border transactions in Europe, that needs to be amended immediately and cannot wait until the roll out of the digital euro.
'In the current geopolitical situation, it's even more important to be independent in terms of payments, including for cross-border transactions in Europe. We have strong solutions at national level, but we don't have anything European for cross-border payments. When you go from France to Spain, Germany, or Netherlands, you have to use American solutions, unless if you use cash. But the use of cash is decreasing, and in terms of digital payments, there is no solution. So we want to bring this sovereign solution to Europe and so build this new innovative wallet. The ambition is to cover all of Europe, but we start with these five markets.'
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