Wero is such a valuable asset for Europe and couldn't have come at a better time.<p>It's built on the excellent SEPA system, which standardized bank transfers and "Lastschrift" in Europe. SEPA itself got a huge upgrade last year with mandatory instant transfers that cannot cost more than standard transfers between European checking accounts.<p>Both of those allowed Wero to happen as a final abstract top layer, meaning: the UX of sending money to an email address with the security and convenience of bank transfers. And everything is built collaboratively on top of European banking infrastructure.<p>No account necessary and no private american conglomerates can delete that account.<p>And before some says: "Well, now the government controls everything!": They already did, since... Ever. Now its one less entity with that access and one that can be (hopefully) controlled and changed by a majority.
Note that Wero is amongs others based on the Dutch iDEAL [1] system, which was introduced 21 years ago. Virtually every Dutch web shop supports iDEAL (and many only support iDEAL) as well as international payment services such as PayPal and Stripe. As a result, the vast majority of transactions of Dutch webshops go through iDEAL. It is really a super-nice frictionless system.<p>iDEAL also supports P2P payments through Tikkie (ABN AMRO) or the payment request option of other banks. You basically show a QR code or send a link and the person paying goes through the iDEAL flow to transfer the money. Tikkie (and the other bank's similar and compatible systems) have been one of the primary methods for P2P transfers for many years now.<p>I am really happy that we are getting the same system across multiple countries now. Contactless payments through Wero are also planned, so that we can finally become independent of Google/Apple Pay for contactless payments using a phone.<p>[1] EPI purchased the Dutch iDEAL and Belgian Payconiq and mentioned on multiple occasions that Wero is based on the foundations of iDEAL. They kept iDEAL running as a separate system in order not to disturb it during the upbringing of Wero, but iDeal is going to migrated to Wero the coming period.
> No account necessary and no private american conglomerates can delete that account.<p>Officially you need a Google or Apple account to download a wero capable app from their stores, and Google and Apple can always delete all wero capable apps from their stores like for example with Russian sanctioned banks.<p>Some banking apps work on non - google play controlled android smartphones, but always only accidentally. Some banks like for example Consorbank already crack down on "sideloading" their app at all: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Consorsbank/comments/1p909w1/comment/nrv0ni6/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/Consorsbank/comments/1p909w1/commen...</a>
If Wero is going to be similar to iDEAL, which it is based on, the payment flow will be through your bank's app. Heck, even the Wero app description says so:<p><i>The Wero app is available only for account holders from the German bank Postbank and the French bank La Banque Postale.<p>Are you a customer of another Wero-enabled bank? If so, you can easily use Wero within your banking app.</i><p><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.epicompany.wero.wallet">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.epicompany....</a><p>I have seen quite some people downloading their banking apps through the Aurora store (admittedly, it's a frontend for the Play Store, but you don't need an account or the app). Or you can use something like APKMirror and verify that they have the correct signing keys.<p>Of course, if they need Play Services or Play Integrity basic, then you need sandboxed Google Play or microG. If your bank does remote attestation through Play Integrity, then it is game over, but it is worth contacting your bank. E.g. some banks have added the GrapheneOS signing keys and added support for AOSP remote attestation.
While researching Wero initially, I was confused too that no APK is offered. Maybe we can change that.grbn
I frequently run into failed SEPA transfers. At least three per month out of ~200. So it could use some more stability for my use case.<p>In all fairness, I also have a couple of VISA payments that fail every month.
I recently bought something from fahrrad.de and was surprised to see Wero as an payment option. I don't know what I expected, but scanning the QR code and acknowledging the payment in my banking app worked without any issues.
The whole process had a very "snappy" feeling without waiting for any of the usual spinners and redirects. So... thumbs up, I guess?
I need to use this thread to mention the Polish payment system Blik. It is one of the most convenient payment systems out there - you generate an ephemeral 6-digit code in your banking app, copy it to the vendor, confirm, done. Works P2P with phone numbers, too.<p>Interestingly, it would be the perfect system for payments using AI agents - the agent tries to pay, asks user to provide 6-digit code, submits payment request. User confirms via banking app. Done.
There is also a Blik feature to pay in one click - merchant remembers your payment and allows making subsequent payment without code, just by confirming transaction via banking app.
There's an interesting angle to BLIK vs Wero. While I believe QR codes are more convenient it is actually possible to give BLIK over the phone. Which means that youngsters (or fraudsters ;)) have access to their guardians' money over the phone line.
[delayed]
Wero shows that marketing is everything. It's just regular bank transactions with a much larger fee. We could have had EPC QR codes and similar completely free technologies instead.
Wero’s website says they don’t charge fees<p>So who is charging the fees?
They most likely don't charge fees on consumer.<p>Usually the fee is on merchant (and it's few % depending on region regulations etc.)
Payment providers such as Wero are doing direct bank transfer, which is usually fee-less, but then they can afford to put a on-merchant fee that's much lower than what credit card companies are charging.<p>Thus the model is win-win-win: Consumer doesn't pay more, Merchant pays less, and Wero gets their share.
Free for individuals, but paid if you're the business it seems from what I've found? If that's the case, it seems to be the same as a card in the US and I wouldn't be surprised if some businesses try to pass it on like they do with cards.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.mollie.com/growth/wero-payment-guide#:~:text=However%2C%20banks%20might,different%20from%20cards." rel="nofollow">https://www.mollie.com/growth/wero-payment-guide#:~:text=How...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://www.bnpparibasfortis.be/en/public/faq/how-much-does-wero-cost#:~:text=Wero%20is%20a,specific%20fees.%20These" rel="nofollow">https://www.bnpparibasfortis.be/en/public/faq/how-much-does-...</a>
Pix is Brazil is also paid by the merchants. ~0.33%.<p>Individuals is completely free. You can transfer even to people without bank accounts (and withdraw on places like corner shops and authorized merchants).<p>For companies certain transfers are free.
eg: my company pays nothing, since I'm not a merchant, one of the banks tried to charge once and I just changed to another that offered 0% in return for keeping investments there.<p>Some banks offer extra services like POS machines with instant confirmation and so on (so the POS employee don't need access to the company bank account).<p>How much is in this case?
>Our pricing is clear and merchant-friendly: a small percentage fee with built-in caps<p><a href="https://wero-wallet.eu/e-m-commerce" rel="nofollow">https://wero-wallet.eu/e-m-commerce</a><p>So they charge a fee, but they don't specify what a "small percentage" is.
The payment service provider (like Stripe or Adyen).
I mean, that was always possible and many offered that. Wero offers the PayPal style integrated flow, QR code scanning from your banking app is slightly higher friction
I've also recently seen a Wero option somewhere in Germany. Probably was the transport authority in Berlin, or an air company, I can't quite remember. Haven't seen it in France yet, though.
This type of thing (scan QR code) is how basically all payments were done when I was recently in China, via wechat or alipay (either you show your QR code for big shops, or scan their QR code for small shops / vendors. They can just print them out if they want and hang a copy).<p>I found it superior to other systems I've used in basically every way. Particularly for small market stalls -- I scan their QR code, <i>I</i> enter how much I want to send them. They never get my details, I don't have to trust they didn't fat-finger the price. It also makes it amazingly easy to send money to friends, just scan their code and send them their share of dinner.
It has massive perks, especially in regions where the transaction fee or exchange fee scams run.<p>(Basically they have a reasonable price showing and when you pay with a credit card you see your banks charges you a huge amount. It can be as simple as in Mexico $ is used for pesos so if the merchant actually charges you USD that's 20x or so rip off).<p>But... This isn't mutually exclusive, why can't I set a price on my smartphone when I pay by contactless?<p>The other benefit is that there QR codes are bank transfers. Which have substantially less recourse and less rights for the consumer. Probably doesn't matter for a $10 sandwich but still significant.
I would claim the main cause why it is more complicated is having VAT and KYC/AML requirements. Transactions can be much easier if you ignore the VAT requirement.
To me NFC is superior. It checks all the boxes you mentioned plus quicker / last steps
God I wish the US had a digital payment system that we could all basically agree on. Having Apple Pay vs Google Pay vs Zelle vs Paypal vs Venmo vs all the others is annoying as hell.
If European retailers manage to link Wero payments to loyalty schemes, then everyone will benefit and this could eventually become something. Still, no thread to legacy credit card rails (Mastercard, Visa) for many years. The industry doesn’t expect hockey stick growth AFAIK
I'd like the EU to enforce a payment-system agnostic checkout for webshops, which gives me the same payment options everywhere and which also adds a layer of privacy.
That's like, literally impossible? "Hey I just invented ameliuspay, your shop doesn't support it, go directly to jail"<p>The closest you have is SEPA because it's universal on all Euro bank accounts. And many webshops do offer it. It doesn't integrate into credit card workflows because it's a push payment - you have to go to your banking app, type the details and send the money, while the website waits. Some people might have to go to an actual bank.
It should also present "pay with your personal information" as a legitimate payment option, which would turn on ads (in case you want that). Otherwise ads should stay hidden and user tracking should not happen.<p>It's time the EU penalizes companies for pushing only AdTech as a payment option. This is unfair competition for the other payment processors.
> competition in digital payments<p>What competition? Here in the Netherlands, iDeal (which is already renamed to Wero) has almost no competition. Perhaps PayPal a few percent
I always use Paypal because they have buyers protection, and this has already saved me countless of times.<p>Would like to see if this is also offered in the Wero ecosystem?
Why is this news? In the Netherlands the ideal system is already replaced by Wero ? What am I missing.
In Spain we can pay using Bizum on many websites, including Amazon.
I get that this is a good thing and long overdue - but the excitement here just underscores for me how expectations in Europe for Europe doing anything truly cutting edge are low.
I think EU citizens are excited mainly because of winning back their digital sovereignty, nobody said this would be cutting edge technology. Actually the simplicity of the solution is key (Wero is based on EU’s proven SEPA Instant Payment rails).<p>That being said, what I do not like about Wero is that some parts of the infrastructure is based on AWS and or Google cloud; hopefully they will switch to European clouds, soon.
The excitement isn't about innovation but about solving a problem: Increasingly unreliable US in payment system
Related:<p><i>Lidl Introduces the European Payment Method Wero in Germany</i><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060205">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060205</a>
iDeal is amazing and it's great it's coming to the rest of Europe, even if they gave it a worse name.<p>Here in the Benelux it's the go-to payment option for ecommerce.<p>I think this will be a much bigger threat to Visa and Mastercard than the oft-promised digital Euro.
> I think this will be a much bigger threat to Visa and Mastercard than the oft-promised digital Euro.<p>Not just the American card networks but also a threat to the US Dollar as the reserve currency and the power it gives to the USA<p>Hence why USA is unhappy with Brazil over their Pix system
Afaik the system is being consolidated<p><a href="https://epicompany.eu/media-insights/ideal-to-phase-into-wero/" rel="nofollow">https://epicompany.eu/media-insights/ideal-to-phase-into-wer...</a><p>« iDEAL will begin rebranding to iDEAL | Wero in 2026 »
I actually like Wero a lot as a name, sound like virtual euro to me.
I don't think the name is that bad. iDeal sounds very dated to me as a native English speaker.
It sounds like a coupon website installing malware to me. But... names are just names. When adoption gets large enough, every name becomes unimportant I guess.<p>iShares, iDeal, WhatsApp: the Millenial trinity of European essentials :D
How would you even pronounce wero as a native English speaker?<p>We - ro?
Wer-o?<p>At least iDeal was unambiguous.
> How would you even pronounce wero as a native English speaker?<p>Thankfully, only about 2% of the EU population speaks English natively.<p>[0] <a href="https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/ebsm/api/public/deliverable/download?doc=true&deliverableId=92148" rel="nofollow">https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/ebsm/api/public/deliverable/dow...</a> Page 10
I heard the gimmick was euro (you-ro) -- wero (we-ro). Which leaves ayero and dayro.
I mean, who cares how you pronounce it? Each country will have its own variant, similar to how euro is pronounced differently in different places, and eventually one will become the English status quo
> I think this will be a much bigger threat to Visa and Mastercard than the oft-promised digital Euro<p>Wasn't the digital Euro specifically crippled due to banks lobbying against it to promote Wero instead?
I agree it's always fast and convenient! It doesn't have the buyer protection you get with a credit card (it debits from your account immediately), but for most purchases that is fine.
Presse release: <a href="https://einblicke.decathlon.de/presse/pressekit/digitale-innovation-im-handel-decathlon-fuhrt-europaische-bezahlmethode-wero-in-deutschland-ein/" rel="nofollow">https://einblicke.decathlon.de/presse/pressekit/digitale-inn...</a>