German customers of Sparkassen, Volksbanken, and Raiffeisenbanken will get the first hands-on to the newly-launched smartphone payment solution «Wero», as recently announced by the European Payments Initiative (EPI). Within 10 seconds, they can now make instant person-to-person transactions, via their banking application — a leaf taken straight out of Twint’s book.

The EPI is backed by 16 European banks (primarily French and German ones), including BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank, who share a common goal: to offer a unified digital payment service for all European businesses and citizens. Wero is also supported by other financial institutions such as ABN Amro (Netherlands), KBC (Belgium), and Nexi (Italy).

Growth of Europe’s «Financial Independece»

EPI Company chairman Joachim Schmalzl says, «The launch of Wero marks an important step towards enhancing Europe’s financial independence.» If noteworthy market shares are achieved in Germany, and soon after pilots in France and Belgium, other foreign banks would most likely follow suit. «Our goal is to sustainably build this innovative solution, paving the way or a secure and efficient digital payment future in Europe,» as Schmalzl states.

Even Thierry Kneissler, co-founder from Wero’s role model Twint, gave his European counterparts good chances in an interview with SRF: «In the medium to long term, Wero can prevail. On the one hand, instant payment, i.e. direct booking from account to account, is the future. And on the other hand, large banks in Europe have now found each other and want to build something together.»

A Wero-Twint Cooperation?

Given the significant regulatory challenges, the idea of Wero entering the Swiss market and directly competing with Twint remains a distant prospect. But a partnership? Conceivable.

Twint CEO Markus Kilb tells SRF that a partnership between the two providers would be only of interest to its users once «a certain level of market coverage» is achieved. «Then we would certainly consider a cooperation,» he affirms.