WERO is coming. Here's what we know (and don't know) for subscription businesses.

How iDeal subscriptions actually work today

There's a common misconception that iDeal processes your recurring subscription payments. It doesn't.

iDeal is only used for the initial mandate capture. When a customer signs up, they authenticate through their banking app and authorize a SEPA Direct Debit mandate. That's the iDeal part: one authentication, once. Every recurring payment after that runs on SEPA Direct Debit (Core).

Your payment provider (Mollie, Adyen, Stripe, whoever) handles this switch automatically.

The technical flow:

1. Initial signup: Customer selects iDeal, authenticates via bank app, SEPA DD mandate is created

2. First charge: Processed as SEPA Direct Debit, not iDeal

3. All future charges: SEPA Direct Debit, merchant-initiated (you pull from their account)

The mandate includes the customer's IBAN, your creditor ID, and the mandate reference. It remains valid until the customer revokes it or until 36 months of inactivity, per the EPC SEPA Direct Debit rulebook.

So when you read about the iDeal to WERO transition, understand that the recurring billing infrastructure isn't going away. SEPA Direct Debit continues to work. What's changing is the front-end experience and the authentication layer.

The technical shift: SEPA Direct Debit vs. SEPA Instant Credit Transfer

This is where it gets interesting. WERO is built on completely different payment rails.

SEPA Direct Debit (what subscriptions use today), documented in Stripe's SEPA DD guide:

SEPA Instant Credit Transfer / SCT Inst (what WERO is built on), governed by the European Payments Council:

SCT Inst has been operational since 2017. Settlement runs through either the ECB's TIPS (TARGET Instant Payment Settlement) or EBA Clearing's RT1 infrastructure, as detailed in the ECB's instant payments documentation.

The EU Instant Payments Regulation made this mandatory: since January 2025, all eurozone banks must receive instant payments; since October 2025, they must send them.

What WERO adds on top of SCT Inst:

WERO is a consumer-facing wallet layer built on SCT Inst rails. Checkout.com's overview explains the additions: no IBAN needed (customer links phone number or email to their bank account), QR code payments, Wallet ID tokens for faster repeat purchases, and push notifications for payment requests.

The European Payments Initiative (EPI), a consortium of 16 banks including ING, ABN AMRO, Rabobank, Deutsche Bank, and BNP Paribas, built this infrastructure to create a European alternative to Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal. Through the EuroPA alliance, Spain (via Bizum), Poland (via BLIK), and Nordic countries (via Vipps) will interconnect by 2027.

What WERO improves for merchants and customers

WERO's expected approach to subscription payments brings three key improvements.

Instant settlement

SEPA DD's 3-5 day settlement creates cash flow lag and delays failed payment detection. With WERO's instant settlement, you know immediately whether a payment succeeded or failed. No more waiting days to discover a customer's account had insufficient funds. For subscription businesses processing thousands of renewals, this tightens the feedback loop considerably.

Better customer controls

EPI's July 2024 launch announcement stated that WERO will include "the ability for consumers to manage recurring payments for subscriptions or installments." Their November 2024 update confirmed this remains in the development pipeline. The exact functionality (whether customers can pause, modify limits, or cancel directly from their banking app) hasn't been detailed in public documentation.

Cross-border European reach

Today, optimizing conversion across Europe means integrating multiple local payment methods: iDeal (Netherlands), Klarna (Germany), Bancontact (Belgium), Cartes Bancaires/Paylib (France), Przelewy24/BLIK (Poland). WERO consolidates this. One integration covers Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg at launch.

What we don't know yet

Here's where the documentation gets thin.

How will WERO subscription mandates work?

SEPA Direct Debit is pull-based: the customer authorizes once, and the merchant initiates future payments without additional authentication. WERO is built on push-based infrastructure (SCT Inst). For subscriptions, there needs to be a standing authorization that allows merchants to initiate recurring charges.

EPI's press releases confirm subscription support is planned, but the technical specification isn't published. Open questions: What does the authorization message look like? Is there a mandate reference similar to SEPA DD? How does the merchant initiate a recurring charge on push-based infrastructure? Will there be per-transaction or monthly limits?

Timeline: EPI's July 2024 announcement mentioned subscription management as a 2025 enhancement, while in-store payments were slated for 2026. Their November 2025 update still lists subscriptions as a longer-term capability without a specific date. The technical specs for merchant-initiated recurring payments remain unpublished.

What do WERO chargebacks look like?

SCT Inst payments are irrevocable by design. Once processed, they cannot be recalled. That's a feature: it's what enables instant finality. But WERO will need a mechanism for consumer protection in disputed transactions.

The September 2024 France launch mentioned that WERO "includes a dispute resolution mechanism." How this works technically (the timeframes, merchant liability, and process) isn't documented. For planning purposes, we're assuming similar chargeback exposure to SEPA DD, but that's an assumption based on regulatory patterns, not published WERO rules.

How will existing SEPA DD subscriptions transition?

If you have thousands of active subscribers paying via SEPA Direct Debit mandates (originally captured through iDeal), what happens to those mandates when WERO fully replaces iDeal? The guidance from Dutch banks suggests existing SEPA DD mandates remain valid. They're not dependent on iDeal continuing to exist. But explicit migration documentation for subscription businesses is sparse.

We’re expecting this to be the case, as SEPA DD will exist after iDeal is phased out.

What to do now

Immediate (by end of March 2026):

Update iDeal logos to "iDeal | Wero" across checkout, email templates, invoices, and customer portal. Confirm your PSP has communicated their migration timeline and technical requirements. Test that payment flows still work as expected.

Monitor closely:

WERO subscription feature announcements from EPI. Technical documentation on mandate handling and merchant-initiated payments. Your PSP's implementation roadmap for WERO recurring billing.

Don't change (yet):

Your SEPA DD subscription billing continues to work. Your chargeback handling processes have the same exposure as before. Your dunning and retry logic is still needed regardless of payment method.

The honest take

WERO represents real infrastructure improvement. Instant settlement, unified European reach, and better customer controls are meaningful upgrades to European payment infrastructure.

But for subscription businesses specifically, the details that matter most (how recurring billing works, how mandates are handled, what the chargeback rules look like) aren't documented yet.

We'll publish updates as the technical specifications become available. If you're a Firmhouse customer, we'll handle the implementation details for you.