ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW) has joined the European Payments Initiative as a principal member and will integrate EPI's Wero wallet solution onto its Payments Orchestration Platform, according to a company press release.

The collaboration will enable merchants and financial intermediaries across Europe to offer Wero as a payment method to consumers and businesses. Wero is a pan-European digital wallet that operates on SEPA instant payment rails and offers peer-to-peer transfers, e-commerce and point-of-sale purchases.

EPI launched Wero in 2024, founded by a consortium of 16 European banks and financial services companies. The service currently provides instant account-to-account payments to consumers in Belgium, France and Germany, serving 55 million users.

EPI plans to expand the service to Luxembourg and the Netherlands in the coming months. German and Belgian consumers can pay online with Wero, while French consumers will gain similar services this fall. In-store payment options are scheduled to launch in 2027.

The EU Instant Payments Regulation came into effect in January 2025, requiring all banks and payment service providers in the Eurozone to handle instant payments. ACI's Prime Time for Real-Time report projects instant payment transactions in Europe will increase from 17.2 billion in 2023 to 38.6 billion in 2028.

"We are excited to announce our strategic partnership with EPI to make Wero a success across Europe," said Nick Craig, head of Europe at ACI Worldwide. "This collaboration leverages ACI's advanced instant payment processing capabilities to address the fragmentation of payment methods in Europe."

ACI currently powers 26 domestic and pan-regional instant payment schemes across six continents and covers approximately one-third of countries that offer instant payment services.