Wero, UKPI and the Future of Payment Interoperability

From Local Schemes to Institutional Infrastructure

Alternative payment methods are not new. Europe already has national and regional solutions such as iDEAL, Swish, BLIK and others. What is changing now is the level of institutional ambition.

Wero, developed by the European Payments Initiative, is designed to become an independent European payment infrastructure. In the UK, UKPI is focused on creating a common rulebook and operating model for recurring payments over open banking rails.

Both developments point to the same direction: A2A payments are moving from fragmented local use cases toward regulated, large-scale payment layers.

Why Payment Sovereignty Matters

Europe and the UK are no longer looking at payment infrastructure only as a commercial market. They increasingly see it as a strategic layer of financial independence.

The digital euro, Wero, UKPI and open banking-based payments all reflect the same broader trend: governments, regulators and banks want more control over the infrastructure that supports everyday payments.

The Lessons from Pix, UPI and China

Brazil’s Pix and India’s UPI show how fast national payment systems can scale when they solve real local problems and become part of daily financial behaviour.

China offers another example, with UnionPay, Alipay, WeChat Pay, e-CNY and cross-border CBDC experiments showing how payment sovereignty can become both a domestic and international strategy.

But what worked in Brazil, India or China cannot simply be copied into mature card markets. In Europe and the UK, cards are already deeply embedded in consumer habits, merchant infrastructure, rewards, chargebacks and fraud protection.

What A2A Still Needs to Solve

A2A payments offer clear advantages: lower cost, faster settlement and direct bank-to-bank movement of funds. But they still lack some of the features that made cards successful for decades.

Chargebacks, buyer protection, dispute resolution, fraud liability and consumer incentives remain critical questions. Without solving them, A2A cannot become a full replacement for cards in every use case.

This is why the future is unlikely to be a simple “cards versus A2A” story. It will be a multi-rail environment where different payment methods compete across cost, reach, trust and user experience.

Stablecoins as a Settlement Layer

Stablecoins should not be seen only as speculative assets. In payment infrastructure, they can act as a settlement layer between local payment systems, especially where traditional correspondent banking is slow, costly or fragmented.

For 8B, this is a practical infrastructure question. Stablecoins can help connect national payment rails more efficiently, while local users continue to pay and receive funds through familiar domestic systems.

The Real Frontier: Interoperability

The real battle in payments is not about replacing Visa and Mastercard overnight. It is about the growing number of national and regional payment systems and the need to connect them across borders.

Pix, UPI, Wero and UKPI can all work extremely well inside their own markets. The challenge begins when a payment crosses a border. That is where domestic rails often fall back into slower legacy settlement chains.

This is exactly the problem 8B is focused on: building the interoperability layer between national payment systems.

The 8B Perspective

At 8B, we believe the future of payments will not belong to one single network. It will belong to infrastructure that can connect many networks.

National QR systems, instant payment schemes, open banking rails and stablecoin settlement layers are all becoming part of the same global payment architecture. The companies that can connect these systems across borders will define the next stage of payment infrastructure.

The industry is moving from isolated national systems toward interoperable payment networks. The next competitive advantage will not be owning one rail. It will be connecting many.

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