European instant payments took a major step forward this week. ACI Worldwide joined the European Payments Initiative, or EPI, as a principal member, in a move that widens the reach of European instant payments. As part of the deal, ACI will integrate the Wero digital wallet onto its Payments Orchestration Platform. Merchants and financial intermediaries across the region can now offer Wero as a new way to pay.
The move matters because it widens consumer choice. It also gives EPI a faster route to scale. Together, the two firms want to ease the fragmentation that has long defined European checkout.
What the ACI and EPI Deal Delivers
Wero launched in 2024, and a consortium of 16 European banks built it. Currently, it serves roughly 55 million users across France, Germany, and Belgium. The wallet runs on SEPA instant payment rails, so funds move account to account in seconds.
Consumers already use Wero for peer-to-peer transfers. Soon, they will use it for e-commerce and in-store purchases too. Germany and Belgium have offered online payments through the wallet since the fall of 2025. French shoppers will gain full online checkout later this year, while in-store payments arrive in 2027.
Meanwhile, EPI keeps widening its map. The initiative is extending Wero into the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and it continues to scout further markets. For example, Dutch banks are migrating the popular iDEAL system over to Wero, which shows how central the wallet has become to European instant payments.
Why Regulation Favors European Instant Payments
Policy is doing some of the heavy lifting here. In January 2025, the EU Instant Payments Regulation took effect. As a result, every bank and payment service provider in the eurozone must send and receive instant transfers for customers.
That mandate creates a ready foundation for wallets like Wero. Beyond the integration, ACI also powers direct instant payment rails across the region. Therefore, banks and PSPs can connect to European instant payments without rebuilding their core systems.
The numbers behind European instant payments explain the urgency. According to ACI’s Prime Time for Real-Time report, instant transactions in Europe will climb from 17.2 billion in 2023 to 38.6 billion in 2028. Notably, they will make up 13% of all electronic payments by then, up from 8% in 2023.
What ACI and EPI Leaders Say
Nick Craig, head of Europe at ACI Worldwide, framed the tie-up as a fix for fragmentation. He said the partnership aims to make Wero “a success across Europe.” In his view, ACI’s processing reach gives merchants and acquirers a single, secure way to accept the wallet.
EPI chief executive Martina Weimert welcomed the new member as well. She described ACI’s arrival as a major move toward making Wero broadly available across the bloc. Furthermore, she tied the rollout to Europe’s wider push for payment resilience.
Where Wero Sits in the Payments Market
The Wero wallet now competes directly in the European instant payments market. As it scales across the region, it lines up against Mastercard, PayPal, and other digital platforms.
ACI brings broad reach to the rollout. The company supports instant payments across 26 domestic and pan-regional schemes on six continents. It touches roughly one-third of the world’s countries and connects about three billion people through banks, networks, fintech firms, and governments.
For merchants, the integration lowers checkout friction and trims reliance on card networks. For EPI, the ACI deal extends Wero toward a wider European rollout.
