European Credit Card and digital euro is coming, end 2025
Bye bye Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and many others. They can go and play "America First". We'll have our own independent system by november 2025.
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Without digital euro, there is already Wero app to replace PayPal, Visa and MasterCard. At least in theory... It's a payment app that allows to pay and receive money via wire transfer from bank to bank without fee.
In practice, many banks are not enrolled in this program and I have yet to find a single business where I can pay this way. But at least replacing PayPal to send money to friends and family should be easy enough.
Here in Italy we have Satispay. It is already quite big. I guess there are still some limitations but these are quickly fixed. Direct bank transfers and reduced fees Satispay
I haven't come across this one. Important difference: Wero is a EU government program, Satispay is operated by a private company.
A private company that is already enshittifying, to be precise. After years of gathering market share by being a zero commissions solution, lately they introduced commissions in some cases higher than what more consolidated payment solutions have.
This is what makes me hopeful with Wero being a government initiative, but it needs a serious push before it starts to become useful.
Do we have any documentation about the origin of the infrastructure providers for Wero?
As far as I understand, it's nothing more than bank-to-bank transfer, just made easy with links and QR codes instead of typing IBAN in your online banking.
Wero is an account-to-account (A2A) solution, meaning that transfers will go through almost immediately once approved. It follows the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer protocol established by the European Payments Council in 2017.
Sure. Wero is interesting because it is an official program but I am worried that it may not be so widespread. Here in Italy I never heard of it. Never seen anyone using it. Maybe it is new?
It is very new, yes
Its not really new. Wero is a rebrand of the Dutch iDeal which has been in widespread use for over a decade
Edit: After trying to find a source for that claim, Im not so sure its correct. The EPI did buy iDeal several years ago, but the text I'm finding doesn't say Wero is a rebrand of iDeal outright.
iDeal will be replaced by Wero (either the technology or the branding?) in the NL by 2027
I think that's wrong. Wikipedia says it's a new system. And yes, it started last year, so it is still rather new
Yeah.. It's a bit opaque, I'm not so sure anymore either.
https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL
The Dutch Wikipedia page says that iDeal was bought by EPI in 2023. They then launched Wero in 2024, and eventually iDeal will be renamed to Wero (Note it says renamed and not replaced)
Maybe they rebranded it? Maybe they reused the technology? I'm not quite sure if and what the relation is.
Edit: This blog post from 2023 claims that EPI said iDeal will be used as the foundation for their (then future) payment platform Wero
https://bankblog.nl/2023/het-nederlandse-ideal-is-verkocht-en-wordt-straks-wero/
I learned about it recently myself on Lemmy. Many French banks are enrolled, but only 1 German bank. I hope it can develop, but today it's practically useless. It needs a serious push from national governments if they want it to succeed.
There's something similar in Spain called Bizum, created by banking institutions. Most Spanish banks implement it so your phone number is associated to your back account, so you can send and receive money instantly without fees to anyone just by knowing their phone number. Works really well.
The program has expanded to Italy and Portugal too. The UE will end up mandating Europe wide interoperability among the biggest ones, is my guess
Belgium had Payconiq, it's being replaced with Wero.
What about Klarna? Isn't it Swedish?
It is. However, they are... Well, let's describe them as pretty US like in spirit.
Shitty. That's the word you're looking for
What does this mean? In regard of their (who is "them"?) political affiliations? Simply the fact that they are not US based or owned lets me prefer them over PayPal.
Shitty business behaviour. People got surprised by changes in the 'fine print' of mail order and internet shops. Consumers had trouble with the concept that they now in essence had two contracts. One with the shop and one with Klarna. Even if the shop didn't deliver the goods or delivered wrong or broken goods, Klarna still demanded the purchase prize.
Klarna has a lot of automated processes. A lot of problems derived from that. People were supposed to enter a certain case number when paying - and nothing else. If people messed up by adding other info (like an invoice number/date/seller) or mistyped, Klarna's system wasn't able to handle it. If they couldn't file the payment there was no other system in place to assure a correct booking. Instead consumers received payment reminders and extra reminder fees. Even when consumers showed proof of payment the system often didn't accept it and it went on and on, in a few cases Klarna went to court about it.
The latest is Klarna's idea wanting banking info from consumers - and by all it's literally everything that is mentioned in your banking statements. Klarna wants the consumer to sign a declaration of release to the bank so that Klarna can access everything.
I haven't tried it. Core difference (on paper): Wero is a EU government program, unlike Klarna which is operated by a private company.
Isn't Wero run by a group of EU banks? First time I hear about EU involvement. Afaik it is the counter effort to the digital Euro from these banks.
Edit: I see, the EU Commission is somewhat involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative but I don't think they are the driving force behind Wero.
You are right, I may have confused things a bit. EPI is the EU program and Wero is one project developed by a goup of banks taking advantage of the EPI.
Also the digital euro isn't supposed to take the place of the 'regular' euro at once, so banks will still want to have other technologies after the digital euro is introduced.
They are evil.
If I want to use my main bank account with wero I have to link my mobile number to it and canβt use it for wero with my other account anymore, because thatβs the only way my bank supports it. Only a small number of banks actually let you use the wero app with multiple sources. Makes it completely useless for me. Paypal isnβt the only one that can do that either. Basically everything not made by companies that primarily want to be banks can do this. E.g. Klarna.
The other thing is that I need something that works outside the EU. Thatβs where replacing paypal and credit cards is actually difficult. In my own country or in the EU, I have plenty of options.
There are many private alternatives, but that is missing the point. An ECB backed digital coin takes away the private bank monopoly on printing digital money. It will be a great contribution to the commons and will decrease the power of private banks. It will also contribute to increased economic resilience.
I recommend reading the publications from positive money on this subject.
https://positivemoney.org/eu/publications/a-digital-euro-for-the-people/
only for German and French banks though, glad we have BLIK here in Poland
Mostly French banks at this point, I only know of PostBank that offers Wero at the moment. I know for sure DeutcheBank doesn't have it yet.
As far as I understand, Wero wonβt replace Mastercard or Visa. Itβs just a way to transfer money between people, like Swish or Vipps for example.
If businesses start of offer it as a payment option, then it could be an alternative to card payment. But we are clearly not there yet. I already use my phone as a mastercard most of the time.