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All Europeans 🇪🇺

1 month ago • •

All Europeans 🇪🇺
1 month ago • •

Someone here suggested WERO, we read about it and have just activated it in our bank. It was very simple and took 2 or 3 clicks.

An all-in-one digital wallet solution:

Wero is a new European payment system designed to modernize the way we handle transactions across the continent. Launched in 2024, it aims to unify various national payment solutions into a single platform.

Wero is the brainchild of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a consortium of 16 European banks. The initiative was born out of a need to create a sovereign and unified payment solution for Europe, reducing dependence on non-European payment systems like Visa & Mastercard.

With Wero, sending money to friends and family will be much easier because it allows you to send and receive €€ instantly using just an email address, phone number, or QR code. No more IBANS, 3 days of waiting to receive 💸 etc.

It's also a good alternative for Paypal 🇺🇸 and it is designed to replace several national payment solutions, including Giropay 🇩🇪, P

Wero - Digital payment wallet

Experience fast and secure digital payments with Wero’s wallet, enabling you to send and receive money between bank accounts in under 10 seconds.

^wero-wallet

This entry was edited (1 month ago)

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Ati

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

We have a nicely working system like this called Blik in Poland. It's made by a consortium of banks and Mastercard. I don't know exactly how it's organised because one of those banks for example is ING but I don't know if "main dutch ING" or polish branch only? However things not-so-great about it would be Mastercard (not exactly european although with some EU capital if I'm not wrong..?) plus it requires either Google proprietary Android or iOS to work so again - "murican" techbros :(

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All Europeans 🇪🇺

in reply to Ati • 1 month ago • •

@ati1

Ah cool, we searched here about it and found many articles talking about WERO and BLIK, there is a real possibility that they will one day integrate to each other:

thefinanser.com/2024/10/could-…

thepaypers.com/thought-leader-…

Could Poland's BLIK be core to the EU’s future payment service? - Chris Skinner's blog

Living in Poland, I have got used to using their local system for payments called BLIK. The way BLIK works is that you access your bank account app, enter a code, get a code back and make a payment at a point-of-sale, ATM, online or anywhere that nee…

^{Chris Skinner's blog}

@Ati

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Ati

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

Sounds great. Now let's hope this part of european tech independece would not start with "first install murican tech bro spyware called android on your phone" only to "be later able to pay contactlessly via Mastercard" ;D Cos for now, (however it works great) it is completely dependent on american big tech an neither me with Linux phone, nor even guys seeking tech independence with more mainstream AOSP based Android forks (Graphene, eOS etc) are unable to use it at all.

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Tobias Ernst

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago •

@All Europeans 🇪🇺 I am with Comdirect (which has no plans of implementing it, shame on them) and luckily also with ING (who plan to implement it shortly). Can't wait!

@All Europeans 🇪🇺

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Paule Panther

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

Sounds really awesome. I am looking forward when my House bank will participate someday (hopefully).
Is there also some kind of insurence implemented as PayPal or Visa has?
What is about transaction costs. Can not Imagine this is for free, is it?

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Tobias Ernst

in reply to Paule Panther • 1 month ago •

@kiiixx @All Europeans 🇪🇺 If I get it right WERO is really just like a nice and easy interface to SEPA transactions that will ultimately also be available at the counter. SEPA transactions are for free, so I'd expect WERO to be for free as well. I think WERO is really about European banks not loosing all their business to U.S. American credit card operators and Fintechs like Paypal.

@All Europeans 🇪🇺 @Paule Panther

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All Europeans 🇪🇺

in reply to Tobias Ernst • 1 month ago • •

@tobifant @kiiixx

I don't know about insurance but it is going to be free. 🙂

Yeah, traditional EU banks are way behind on digitalisation and instant payments, which is why new digital banks and payment platforms like PayPal and Lydia are doing so well.

So WERO will be a competitor to services such as PayPal, as well as to some EU digital banks that already offer instant payments. In the future, they plan to implement services that could potentially replace the need to use Apple Play and Google Wallet.

In the long term they could try to be a global payment solution to compete with Visa and Mastercard not only in the EU but also internationally, who knows!

@Tobias Ernst @Paule Panther

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Petra van Cronenburg

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

It will be a competitor to Paypal if it works globally and for online shops. @tobifant @kiiixx

@Tobias Ernst @Paule Panther

This entry was edited (1 month ago)

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Jan Blockx

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

I can confirm this is already operational in Belgium (used it earlier today). Like its predecessor Bancontact, it also allows for payments in shops through a QR code.

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Tobias Ernst

Unknown parent • 1 month ago •

@All Europeans 🇪🇺 @kiiixx Yeah and that makes total sense. I am old enough to remember the time when we in Europe had cheap bank transactions, everybody had a current account with the bank, and we were laughing out loud about the U.S. and their ancient paper check based system; credit cards at that time were pure luxury for the travelling rich. Then the American credit card companies started pushing into our market and we accusomted ourselves to paying fees we would not have to pay had we sticked to the European system. They were so scucessful particularly because European banks failed to offer a solution for online shipping. It is time for Europe's banks to claim back the European market!

@All Europeans 🇪🇺 @Paule Panther

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Javi

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

in Spain we have a very similar system called Bizum, which is widely used here

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All Europeans 🇪🇺

in reply to Javi • 1 month ago • •

@zgjavi

They should have used Bizum instead of creating a new system 🤔
But they will probably integrate Bizum and Wero in the future:

xataka.com/empresas-y-economia…

El Banco Central Europeo lleva cinco años peleando por crear literalmente un "Bizum europeo". Ahora ha...

Europa quiere tener su propio gran sistema de pagos instantáneos. Eso permitiría evitar la dependencia de las grandes líderes del mercado, Visa y Mastercard,...

^{Javier Pastor (Xataka)}

@zgjavi

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Ondrej Omar Martinek

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

Well support the Digital Euro initiative because that will literally solve all the issues with private payment systems: youtu.be/1Al3ZIFUQ5U?si=x8ZNJv…

Why we Need a Digital Euro | Evelien Witlox (ECB)

Check out the Daily Upside: https://bit.ly/3FOJ0akMore info about the Digital Euro: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/digital_euro/html/index.en.html?utm_medium...

^YouTube

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o/1MS\o ⌨️🐧 | #WeAreNatenom

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

Currently it is only possible for money transfer between people.
It is not possible to pay at online shops.
As far as I know, this feature should be available in 2026 or so.
And in Germany not all banks are providing Wero, my bank is one of them.

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homtec

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

Europe doesn’t have to wait for WERO.

SEPA instant transfers ist mostly for free since January. Create your personal QR code that includes your IBAN. Use your banking app to scan your friend’s QR code and you‘re done.

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Tobias Ernst

in reply to homtec • 1 month ago •

@homtec @All Europeans 🇪🇺 It should have an added benefit once I can pay at the till in stores and restraurants using Wero, or when sending money to a remote friend using simpley their e-mail address.

@All Europeans 🇪🇺 @homtec

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Angela Scholder

in reply to Tobias Ernst • 1 month ago • •

@tobifant @kiiixx That is non-commercial banks I think, as a lot of what you mentioned in Europe, especially the Netherlands, I'm pretty sure was developed bij non-commercial state owned banks.

@Tobias Ernst @Paule Panther

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mkj

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

Will it also work for sending and receiving €€, or is it $$ only?

#Wero

#wero

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Martin

in reply to mkj • 1 month ago • •

@mkj since it's an European solution it will prefer Euro payments.

@mkj

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mkj

in reply to Martin • 1 month ago • •

@chotemysl You'd hope so, but @ueeu specifically wrote that "it allows you to send and receive $$ instantly" with no mention of payments in €.

@All Europeans 🇪🇺 @Martin

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All Europeans 🇪🇺

in reply to mkj • 1 month ago • •

@mkj @chotemysl

Oups! Sorry, we'll correct the post! 😳

@Martin @mkj

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Max L.

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 1 month ago • •

SEPA: exists
wero:

xkcd comic #927 CC BY-NC 2.5 by Randall Munroe: https://xkcd.com/927/

Comic alt-text: "Fortunately, the charging one has been solved now that we've all standardized on mini-USB. Or is it micro-USB? Shit."

Transcript:

[Caption above the panels:]
How Standards Proliferate
(See: A/C chargers, character encodings, instant messaging, etc.)
[A text-only panel.]
Situation:
There are 14 competing standards.
[Cueball and Ponytail stand facing each other.]
Cueball: 14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases.
Ponytail: Yeah!
[Another text-only panel. The word "Soon:" appears in its own box at the upper left of the panel.]
Soon:
Situation:
There are 15 competing standards.

Unknown parent

Tobias Ernst

Unknown parent • 1 month ago •

@koehntopp ~ : @All Europeans 🇪🇺 Well, in Germany they have the Volksbanken and Sparkassen and ING and Deutsche Bank on board (and with them a lot of data centers that also supply services to small banks that would equally be able to introduce it at virtuall no cost). That's a large customer base. The only large German bank rejecting it so far is Commerzbank.

@All Europeans 🇪🇺 @koehntopp ~ :

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Fabian (Bocchi) 🏳️‍🌈

in reply to All Europeans 🇪🇺 • 2 weeks ago • •

Not supported by both of my banks 🥰

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