Allensbach survey puts Wero at 45 percent awareness and 5 percent usage in Germany, with the card still the expected future default

Results of the 2026 Allensbach payment study, commissioned by the Initiative Deutsche Zahlungssysteme (the industry body behind girocard) and based on 1,039 face-to-face interviews with Germans aged 16 and over conducted in July and August 2026, were reported on 20 October 2026. Wero is known to 45 percent of respondents and unknown to 55 percent; 5 percent have used it and a further 4 percent have activated it.

Among those who know Wero, 46 percent can imagine using it; among those who do not, 61 percent reject it and 13 percent show interest. The digital euro is known to 54 percent, with 7 percent saying they would probably use it and 23 percent able to imagine it, while 31 percent rule it out and 20 percent call it unlikely; among 16 to 29 year olds 17 percent would probably use it against 2 percent of the over-60s.

Asked which means of payment they expect to matter over the next five years, respondents named the card at 78 percent, cash at 55 percent, the smartphone at 49 percent, Wero at 39 percent, the digital euro at 12 percent and cryptocurrencies at 4 percent.

Wero's merchant case rests on consumer pull, and this is the first dated German demand measurement to put a number on it two years into the rollout: one in twenty people has paid with it. For a German merchant weighing whether to switch Wero on, that is the conversion side of the business case, and it sits against a card expectation of 78 percent.

It also sets the baseline the EPI rollout will be measured against as Wero moves from peer-to-peer into checkout, and it prices the political argument for European payment sovereignty in actual usage rather than intent. The commissioning body represents girocard, which is the incumbent the two newcomers would displace, so the framing is interested even where the fieldwork is not.

Whether awareness moves once Wero acceptance reaches checkout at scale in Germany, how the 2027 wave compares on the 5 percent usage figure, whether the digital euro's 31 percent outright rejection shifts as the ECB pilot runs, and whether German acquirers and PSPs price Wero acceptance on these adoption numbers.

• it-finanzmagazin.de