Europe's largest ticketing provider, CTS Eventim, has become the first major e-commerce company in Germany to integrate the Wero wallet from the bank-backed European Payments Initiative into its online shop.
Having grown its European user base to over 45 million in just 15 months, Wero offers a mobile-first, instant account-to-account payment platform that enables transfers in under 10 seconds.
The integration into CTS Eventim was handled by PPRO, providing the infrastructure to process Wero payment transactions in Germany for ticket purchases across concerts, theatre shows, and sports events.
The deal represnts a major breackthrough for the EPI. CTS Eventim is the number one provider of ticketing services in Europe and number two in the world. Over 300 million tickets per year are marketed using the company’s systems - through mobile/online portals and physical box offices.
Martina Weimert, EPI CEO says: “Eventim is the first online ticketing platform to allow its customers to use Wero to purchase concert tickets to see their favourite music band, or to support their soccer team in the stadium. As an active partner, PPRO is helping drive our progress towards offering instant, secure account-to-account payments across borders - making everyday commerce more convenient for European consumers and more cost-efficient for merchants.”
She say the the deployment marks the start of a progressive rollout of Wero for e-commerce across the German market as the company commences work with member banks, acquirers, and German merchants that have expressed their intention to activate he wallet for A2A payments.
The 14 banks backing the Wero project have called on the European Central Bank to rethink its plans for the introuction of a digital euro, arguing that such a move could derail private sector innovations.
“The current design of the retail digital euro largely addresses the same use cases as private solutions, without offering any clear added value for consumers,” the banks said ahead of a hearing on the project scheduled by the ECB for Wednesday.