Payments 2026: Will Wero Achieve Further Milestones?

Two initiatives in particular are currently causing a stir in European payments: the digital euro and Wero. While for the digital euro the legal framework established by legislators will be decisive, Wero could reach an important milestone in 2026 with its use at the point of sale and the expansion of e-commerce. With the account-based payment system, Europe – driven by the European Payments Initiative — wants to establish a European counterweight to US market leaders such as PayPal.

The momentum is favourable: global crises and the strengthening of nationally oriented governments around the world are causing Europe to increasingly focus on its self-sufficiency and independence. In the payments sector, Wero can be a means to becoming more independent, especially in relation to the dominant US companies.

In addition to cost advantages compared to PayPal, the European payment service is also receiving a boost from the EU's instant payments regulation. More and more financial institutions and retailers are integrating Wero as a payment solution. Wero already has well over 46 million users across Europe, and the trend is rising.

As of 2026, the popular Dutch payment system iDEAL will also be gradually transferred to Wero. 

Thanks to its skilful expansion strategy and the launch in e-commerce and at the point of sale, Wero could actually gain market share from PayPal. Patience and further skill are now required. The point of no return has long since been passed anyway.

While there are promising initiatives to strengthen European sovereignty with Wero and the digital euro, this is not evident in card-based payments. Co-badges with Visa Debit and Debit Mastercard are becoming more widespread, as is the offer of external wallets by financial institutions, in particular Apple Pay and Google Pay.

In international payments, more and more providers and initiatives are catering to the desire for faster processing, lower costs and greater transparency in payments. Uniform standards are a prerequisite for this. Following the launch of the new ISO formats in 2025, the focus will shift to other components such as structured address data and standardised remittance information. At the same time, the trend towards real-time payments across national and regional borders continues. Various initiatives are gaining momentum, and it will be exciting to see which additional routes (“rails”) emerge to further improve the speed, costs, and transparency.

Although Swift is meeting the increasing demands for transparency and speed with gpi or Swift Go, powerful alternatives are emerging in parallel: Mastercard XB Services, Visa Direct, Wise Payments Network and Circle Payments Network are just a selection of providers that offer alternatives with very different approaches and focal points. At the same time, many financial institutions are working hard to improve.

As the number of new rails increases, so do the demands on the infrastructure of financial institutions. They must be able to flexibly integrate and efficiently orchestrate different routes and procedures.

At the infrastructure level, on the other hand, Europeanisation is also becoming increasingly important. Some institutions, including the first public business development banks, are already relying on alternative cloud providers outside the large US corporations. At the same time, the trend towards outsourcing payments applications to the cloud is advancing. This is often associated with the replacement of old systems that no longer reliably support modern requirements, such as ISO capability or real-time processing.

Technologically, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) will continue to gain in importance. In addition to process optimisation and cost reduction, the focus is increasingly shifting to the sales side with “Agentic AI”. Customers could use AI for entire purchasing processes in the future – for example, for planning, booking and paying for a trip. Retailers will be looking more closely at “Agentic Commerce” and testing applications. And the approaching quantum computing is also becoming increasingly noticeable through the EBICS 4.0 regulation currently in progress.

With the advances in real-time processing and AI, the importance of combating fraud is also increasing. Whether global or regional – payment transactions remain an attractive field for criminals. Therefore, it will be just as important to consistently further develop the security measures as the services themselves.

Even this brief outline shows: the payments sector will continue to face challenges in 2026. Europe must assert itself in the tense relationship between increasingly complex cross-border payments on one hand and ensuring European autonomy on the other. In addition, there are technological upheavals, above all through AI, with massive effects on payments.

However, Europe is increasingly setting the course to becoming more independent of the rest of the world. The successful launch of Wero is a clear sign of this. It will be exciting to see whether the players manage to continue on this path in 2026.