Wero for Merchants launches: BNP Paribas enables merchant acceptance in five countries — Germany included
On 8 September 2026 BNP Paribas presented the launch of Wero for Merchants in Paris. The bank enables its merchant customers to accept Wero in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg; Air France, Decathlon, Fnac Darty and Orange are named as the first large merchants. Fnac Darty plans to start in early 2027.
What happened
Wero is leaving the friends-and-family transfer behind and moving into the checkout. To that end, BNP Paribas held a press conference in Paris on 8 September 2026 with EPI chief executive Martina Weimert and several large merchants; the announcement has been in the EPI Company newsroom since 8/9 September, and Fnac Darty confirmed the appearance on its own corporate site on 11 September. The core of the announcement: in future the bank will enable its merchant customers to accept Wero in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and all BNP Paribas retail customers in France can pay online with Wero at participating merchants. Air France, Decathlon, Fnac Darty and Orange are named as the first major brands. Fnac Darty plans to offer Wero on fnac.com in early 2027 and then roll it out step by step into its stores and further European markets. Wero for Merchants relies on real-time account transfers: no card data in the checkout, authorisation in the banking app, immediate confirmation. According to the announcement, in-store payment, recurring payments and subscriptions are on the roadmap. No terms for merchants are named.
Who it affects
Online merchants with customers in several European markets first; in Germany above all those who already have Wero in their shop or are planning it — after dm in August that is still a short list. In the medium term it affects every bricks-and-mortar merchant, because in-store payment is explicitly on the plan.
Assessment
What is remarkable is who is appearing here. It is not EPI explaining the merchant launch, but a commercial bank with its corporate customer book — and that is the actual sales mechanism behind Wero. A house bank that puts an additional payment method into its merchant customer's existing checkout has an access route no wallet provider can buy with advertising. That is exactly how girocard grew large. That the acceptance explicitly covers Germany too is the line German merchants should read: in future the distribution route runs through the banking relationship, not only through the payment provider.
What is missing from the announcement is nevertheless the thing merchants decide on. There is not a word about fees, not a word about reversals and buyer protection, and apart from Decathlon the brands named are French. A real-time account transfer is initially good for the merchant — money immediately, no card data, none of the schemes' chargeback mechanics. But it is also final: where there is no chargeback, there is also no established dispute handling, and the merchant then has to provide it themselves. Anyone adopting Wero should count it as an additional option alongside card and PayPal, not as a replacement. And anyone planning to switch providers should ask when Wero will be available on their platform rather than waiting for it.
What to do now
- Ask your own payment provider whether and from when Wero will be available as a payment method and what adding it costs technically.
- Check your own customer base: what share of customers comes from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg? Wero adoption there is higher today than in Germany.
- Define in advance how complaints on transfer-based payments are handled — without a chargeback procedure the process sits entirely in-house.