Europe Launches Payment System to Replace Visa and Mastercard: 48.5 Million Users and Growing

Europe just launched Wero—a payment system designed to eliminate European dependence on Visa and Mastercard. The system now has over 47 million registered users across Belgium, France, and Germany, and recently signed agreements to expand to 130 million users across 13 countries.

This isn’t a pilot program or a banking innovation. This is the European Union systematically building infrastructure to end American control over how Europeans spend money. And the timeline shows strategic urgency: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde told Irish radio that Europe needs its own digital payment system “urgently,” warning that virtually all European card and mobile payments currently run through non-European infrastructure controlled by Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, or Alipay.

When former ECB President Mario Draghi publicly states that “deep integration has created dependencies that can be abused when not all partners are allies,” that’s not speculation. That’s European institutions pricing geopolitical risk into their infrastructure decisions.

The Scale of European Payment Dependency

The European Payments Initiative is an alliance of 16 European banks including BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank. According to data from SBS Software, Visa and Mastercard process over €7 trillion in European payments annually and hold 61% of card transactions in the eurozone.

The numbers reveal genuine vulnerability. That’s not just transaction processing—that’s comprehensive behavioral data flowing through American servers, creating intelligence dependencies that European policymakers have concluded are strategically untenable.

Former ECB President Mario Draghi framed the issue explicitly: “Deep integration has created dependencies that can be abused when not all partners are allies. Interdependence, once seen as a source of mutual deterrence, has become a source of leverage and control.” When a former central bank president describes American payment infrastructure in terms of “leverage and control,” that’s not rhetoric. That’s European finance ministries recalculating sovereign risk.

Wero’s Current Capabilities and Expansion

Wero has already processed over €7.5 billion in transfers and counts more than 1,100 member institutions. Retail payments went live in Germany at the end of 2025, with merchants including Lidl, Decathlon, and Rossmann already accepting Wero for online payments. France and Belgium are scheduled to follow in 2026.

The real acceleration came on February 2nd, when EPI signed a memorandum of understanding with the EuroPA Alliance—a coalition of national payment systems including Italy’s Bancomat, Spain’s Bizum, Portugal’s MB WAY, and the Nordics’ Vipps MobilePay. According to Wikipedia, this agreement transforms Wero from a system operated by 16 banks into the integration platform for existing national payment systems covering 130 million users.

Here’s the mechanism that matters: Wero is built on SEPA Instant Credit Transfers. Users send money using just a phone number—no IBAN, no card number, no American intermediary processing the transaction. The system allows Europeans to pay and transfer money across borders without touching a single American network.

The Geopolitical Context

ECB President Christine Lagarde emphasized the urgency of the situation in her interview with Irish radio. “It’s important for us to have digital payment under our control,” Lagarde stated. “Whether you use a card or whether you use a phone, typically it goes through Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Alipay. Where are all those coming from? Well, either the US or China.”

When central bank presidents publicly frame payment infrastructure as a matter of strategic control rather than commercial convenience, they’re signaling to markets that current dependency levels create unacceptable systemic risk.

The geopolitical driver behind this urgency is explicit. As European Business Magazine reports, Trump’s trade threats, tariff volatility, and institutional unpredictability have convinced European finance ministers that relying on American payment networks is strategically untenable.

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The Financial Implications for American Payment Networks

According to SBS Software analysis, Visa and Mastercard process over €7 trillion in European payments annually. If Wero captures even 20% of that volume by 2030, that represents €1.4 trillion in annual transactions migrating off American networks. Card networks typically charge merchants 1-2% in transaction fees. At 1.5%, that’s €21 billion in annual revenue that would shift from American companies to European infrastructure.

But the implications go beyond direct revenue. Payment networks aren’t just profit centers—they’re data infrastructure. Every transaction processed through Visa or Mastercard generates behavioral data that American financial institutions can analyze. When Europeans move payments to Wero, they’re not just changing payment processors. They’re reclaiming data sovereignty.

Banks using Wero gain direct access to rich, real-time transaction data that would otherwise be mediated by card networks. European banks can now build customer behavior models without that data flowing through American servers. For intelligence agencies and economic policymakers, this matters significantly. Payment data reveals consumption patterns, supply chain dependencies, and economic vulnerabilities. Europe is systematically closing that intelligence gap.

The Implementation Strategy

The rollout strategy is sophisticated. In the Netherlands, iDEAL will be integrated into Wero in 2026, according to Wikipedia. This isn’t asking Dutch consumers to adopt something unfamiliar. It’s migrating them from a trusted national system to a European one with minimal friction. The user experience stays familiar while the underlying infrastructure shifts to European control.

Wero’s 2025-2026 roadmap includes stored-alias “tap-to-pay” at point of sale, one-click e-commerce checkout, and instant refunds, according to Payplug. They’re not building a limited regional system. They’re building feature parity with Visa and Mastercard while offering faster settlement times and lower merchant fees.

The competitive positioning is deliberate. Visa and Mastercard executives have publicly stated they’re “unconcerned” about European alternatives, pointing to previous failed attempts at European payment unification. But those attempts didn’t have €500 million in bank funding, 47 million existing users, and geopolitical urgency driving adoption. The competitive landscape has fundamentally changed.

The Regulatory Advantage

The EU’s regulatory environment accelerates Wero’s adoption. The Instant Payments Regulation mandates that all euro payments settle within 10 seconds by 2025. PSD3 takes effect in 2026, creating additional pressure for instant account-to-account payments. European regulation is structurally advantaging Wero over card networks that were designed for slower settlement.

There’s also a parallel initiative. The ECB is developing a digital euro—a central bank digital currency that would provide government-backed payment infrastructure. According to Wikipedia, merchants in the eurozone would need to accept digital euros in store and online by 2029, when the ECB aims to start issuing the token. Europe is building redundant payment sovereignty across both private sector and government infrastructure.

The Russia Precedent

The Russia precedent shapes European thinking here. When Visa and Mastercard cut Russia off from their networks in 2022, European policymakers took notice. The message was unambiguous: if geopolitical relations deteriorate, American payment companies can be weaponized. Europe is building infrastructure so that scenario becomes impossible.

This isn’t hypothetical concern. When American payment networks can unilaterally freeze out entire economies, allies watching that capability will inevitably build alternatives. Wero represents Europe’s conclusion that payment dependency on America creates unacceptable vulnerability to policy volatility that European governments cannot control.

What Happens Next

Here’s my prediction: by 2028, Wero processes €500 billion annually, Visa and Mastercard’s European market share drops below 50%, and American financial institutions begin lobbying for reciprocal market access restrictions. The pattern we’re watching is not “European protectionism.” It’s European institutions concluding that payment dependency on America creates strategic vulnerabilities that can no longer be tolerated.

When 130 million Europeans can pay across borders without touching American networks, that’s not a competitive threat to two companies. That’s a structural shift in financial sovereignty that reduces American leverage over European economic behavior.

Wero will expand. The question is how fast American policymakers recognize that European payment decoupling isn’t reversible. Markets are already pricing in this shift—European banks are investing heavily in Wero infrastructure while American payment networks maintain they’re “unconcerned.” One of those assessments will prove correct. Based on current data, it won’t be the American one.

Sources

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