Wero is cutting off Luxembourg residents’ access to their accounts

On 1 September, the new Wero digital payment system, developed by the European Payments Initiative (EPI), was officially launched in Luxembourg. It is set to fully replace the Payconiq service, which will cease operations on 30 September. The rights to use the Payconiq licence have been acquired by the EPI, and the scheduled dates for the decommissioning of the old app will not be revised. Consequently, users are becoming increasingly concerned about potential difficulties in activating new accounts.

Ralf Hamal, a spokesperson for EPI, reported that around 0.75 per cent of users are experiencing technical difficulties and are unable to complete their registration. The main difficulties arise during the identity verification stage, which is a mandatory requirement for certain categories of customers. According to Benoît Elvinger, the future CEO of Spuerkeess Bank, in such cases the platform requests additional information. Financial institutions provide the necessary data, but processing it on the developer’s end takes longer. However, the banks cannot directly influence how quickly the issue is resolved.

Despite the current difficulties, around 87,000 Spuerkeess Bank customers have already successfully registered on the new system, accounting for a significant proportion of Payconiq’s former user base. Statistics show that 95 per cent of transactions via Wero are now successful on the first attempt, whilst the developers’ target is set at 100 per cent. For users who have not yet been able to activate their accounts, the app’s developers recommend simply waiting and refraining from repeated registration attempts, as this will not speed up the data verification process. Ralf Hamal noted that the procedure must in any case be completed by EPI, and apologised to customers for any delays.