Wero joins Bancomat and Bizum in a Madrid payments hub
Wero takes an equal stake in a Madrid payments hub with Bancomat and Bizum. Person-to-person transfers come first, and each scheme keeps its own bank app.
Having followed the February memorandum, I read Wero's September 30 incorporation as a governance move, not a new wallet. Wero is taking an equal stake in a Madrid company that will link Bancomat, Bizum and two other account-to-account brands without asking users to drop the apps they open. Finextra reported it on October 1, 2026. The parallel is what the European Central Bank is studying with Brazil's Pix: connect rails that already work at home, and leave the front end alone.
A shared hub does not, by itself, move checkout volume. The founding statement says the technical build is still being prepared, and the first live use is cross-border person-to-person payments. E-commerce and point-of-sale (POS) come later. Person-to-person transfers are where these brands are already strong. Merchant acceptance is where Visa and Mastercard still price, dispute and guarantee the payment.
What the five schemes formed
Bancomat, Bizum, the European Payments Initiative (EPI) Company behind Wero, SIBS, which operates MB WAY, and Vipps MobilePay said on September 30, 2026 that they had created the European Network for Payments. Bancomat's release puts the headquarters in Madrid and says the company will run the interoperability hub promised in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in February 2026. Finextra covered that memorandum on February 9.
The five founders are equal shareholders and can add members later if a scheme meets the network's tests. The layer uses European standards and instant account-to-account (A2A) payments, while brands stay put. The joint statement says the solutions already serve approximately 130 million users across 13 European countries, more than 70% of the population of the European Union and Norway.
Who spoke, and who did not
"By connecting strong national solutions through a common framework, we are enabling seamless cross-border experiences while preserving the diversity, trust and proximity that each system has built in its own market," said Fabrizio Burlando, chief executive and general manager at Bancomat. Fernando Rodríguez, deputy general manager for international expansion at Bizum, said the hub should enable "simple, instant and secure" cross-border payments while keeping each local experience. He told Reuters the company has already selected a chief executive and plans to hire. The statement does not name that person.
Martina Weimert, chief executive of EPI, described fragmentation to Reuters as the "biggest hurdle" for European payment schemes. She also said shareholders will absorb operating costs in the early years, until the company has enough scale to charge fees. Equal ownership does not mean the hub is self-funding on day one.
Marcel Hörauf, a partner at Mayer Brown, told Reuters the project "reflects a growing focus on connecting the payment systems Europeans already use, rather than replacing them." Sovereignty, he said, still depends on the rules, merchant acceptance and member-state support. Visa and Mastercard gave no fresh on-the-record response in that Reuters report or in Finextra's October 1 piece. Reuters said the two networks handle almost two-thirds of the bloc's card payments, volume this hub is not yet touching.
The footprint is uneven
The same September 30 statement shows the gaps. Wero handles person-to-person payments in Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg. Online payments are live in Germany. Belgium and Luxembourg offer Wero's current in-store uses. The iDEAL migration is under way in the Netherlands, and Austria is expected in 2027. EPI lists 18 shareholders and more than 50 member institutions.
Bizum reported more than 32 million users as of September 2026, and more than 3.4 million instant Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) transfers a day in 2025. Bancomat cited more than 2.7 billion transactions a year, worth around €200 billion. Vipps MobilePay cited about 13 million users across the Nordics. SIBS said MB WAY has 7 million users. Those bases produce the 130 million figure. They do not show that one app can already pay another.
Brite's UK pay-by-bank launch and the UK Payments Delivery Company's raise are the same merchant-side bet in another market. The Payments Association's European tie-up shows the trade groups consolidating on the same timetable.
What a merchant still needs
The next test is narrow. If the first phase lands, a Wero user and a Bizum or Bancomat user should be able to pay each other without a new app and without a card network in the middle. If it slips, Madrid holds a shareholder vehicle, a chief executive and a cost base, not a live rail.
The group told Reuters that European Central Bank plans for a digital euro by 2029, a wallet guaranteed by the central bank and run by private firms, could complement the hub rather than replace it. That split works only if merchants get a dispute path and a fee that beat the card default. Until the hub can charge for itself, five shareholders are funding a promise POS volume has not earned.
Reporting by Rick Steves. Filed 4 October 2026, 09:02 GMT.
Senior Reporter, Regulation and Fintech
Rick Steves has seen business and economics through many lenses. He joined the financial services industry in 2009, and has been a financial journalist since 2011.
