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If in the EU. Try WERO and tell your bank how to make it better if you truly care about an alternative to PayPal and the Visa/Master duopoly. Don’t expect the perfect solution. Understand that alternatives are never better or perfect from the get-go but that we need to tell them through using them how to become better and better. Be a pioneer, not a follower :)

wero-wallet.eu

This entry was edited (2 months ago)

Thibaultmol 🌈 reshared this.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

I opened a ticket about WERO support with my bank end of last year and they responded, that they have no plans to support it 😞
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

I haven't found one yet, that fits all my requirements unfortunately :( I really like that my Bank is allowing me to create subaccounts with their own IBAN number and havily use that for clean seperation of things.
Unknown parent

@mc Tell them. PayPal and Visa/Master aren’t better in that regard. Change through use beats criticising from the sidelines.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

well it is hard to try when it's not available yet. For now it is only Germany, France and Belgium. It will take a few years before it will be wider available. Here in the Netherlands, we only see a Wero logo next to the iDEAL logo, and it will be during 2027 before we actually see anything from it.

But it definitely is an interesting development.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

it seems to be euro only, so no luck in πŸ‡¨πŸ‡Ώ. But Visa/Master have slowly been replaced by instant QR transfers here.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

The expected β€žyes, butβ€œ is strong in the replies. ;) (I will now go to bed, so the "yes,, but" crowd will have its playing field until I wake up again and post friendly replies with links on how they are wrong. My advice: Try Wero, note it isn't perfect, tell Wero and your bank what is needed for you to switch fully. We can do this :)
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Well, I had no idea wero existed, but I just found out it does, and that it is available through my bank... Thanks!

(Obligatory nitpicking: it's Visa MasterCard and Amex...)

in reply to Parade du Grotesque πŸ’€

@ParadeGrotesque Wero is not Amex, MasterCard, Visa. At least according to their page. It is operated by European Payments Initiative. Also EPI seems to be a separate infrastructure. Or do I understand your post wrong?
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

"But I have Bizum and it's so good" -> It joins Wero epicompany.eu/media-insights/e…

"But I have iDeal and it's so good" -> It joins Wero ideal.nl/en/naar-wero

"My bank doesn't support it" -> Other banks do, switch, maybe?

This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

FYI: "Bancomat, Bizum, EPI, SIBS and Vipps MobilePay sign MoU to accelerate the rollout of sovereign, pan-european payment solutions" epicompany.eu/media-insights/b…
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

#wero is cool, but the #digitaleuro is the revolution (for Europe that is, China has a digital yuan already for some time).

On the frontend its all bits over the wire but in the backend it does matter which ledger you ultimately connect to..., i.e., private bank money versus sovereign money.

(Now I go to bed to avoid all the noise about the big brother central bank monitoring all our precious transactions 🀣 )

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

"[...] the European Payments Initiative (EPI) and the EuroPA Alliance signed a landmark agreement to build a pan-European interoperable payment network covering 130 million users across 13 countries. The system, built around the digital wallet Wero, aims to let Europeans pay and transfer money across borders without touching a single American network."

europeanbusinessmagazine.com/b…

This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

awesome, hope it expands to Australia once the EU rollout is done. Would be happy to avoid visa / PayPal / apple pay etc
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

I just hope there will come some real alternatives in the Nordics, as #Vipps is a piece of sh.... Especially for users on #degoogled Android. It so often requires a full reset and re-login to activate it because it believes the non-rooted phone is rooted. This is the only banking app I have used which behaves like that. The issue has been reported and ignored by them multiple times.

I've also worked in the bank where Vipps originates from ... That also is of great concern, as the working morale in the division I was in was depressing. I hope the branching out of Vipps to a separate company has helped. But given the ignorance to fixing issues, I have strong doubts. Adding more features which enables user tracking and moving towards a marketplace app has way more attention.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Let's hope it's mobile implementation will work on degoogled androids and linux phones.
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

(And to all the reply-guys with their "Yes, but what about my de-googled phone?" You are the 0.001% of users. You made your choice to use a setup of which you knew it will not always work. I hope you can switch to a bank that supports your setup. Some do. Support them! In my personal opinion the decoupling from the Master/Visa duopoly is however far more important.)
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

The decoupling is very valuable. I hope in the future they will provide that service for people who really really really don't do banking via mobile phone, also.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

My obligatory 'Yes, but...' comment:
So what about e.g. Revolut? It has been around for ages and the service is not US based afaik... πŸ€”
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

have you found any meaningful pricing to help people who want integrate with it, understand what they’re getting themselves into?

I have spent some time looking through the website a few times now, because I would prefer to use it when building services instead of Stripe or PayPal, but I must be missing something obvious if it’s already there.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

I fully agree that we have to decouple from the Master/Visa duopoly.

However, I find it equally important we (in EU) can decouple from the iPhone/Android duopoly. Looking at you @jolla ! πŸ˜…

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

we don’t need de-googled phones. We in Europe need our own mobile operating system which can’t be sold overseas.

A MVP phone for day to day use for the first 5% early adopters.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Very intriguing. And this card is accepted at all stores all over EU? Just need to wait for the dust to settle and for them to realize that phone number is not a prerequisite to doing banking and I’m signing up!
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Ye pushing this Wero as something that "[does not touch] a single American network" is really sloppy. Wero can only run on devices with Android or Ios! Why doesn't anybody higher up in the food chain seem to understand this?
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

good initiative. In Poland we have for some time already a payment system that is an alternative to credit cards called Blik blik.com/en and it is fast and allows payments on phone numbers. Not to mention that it has lower charges than credit cards as far as I know. Having that across EU would be great. If it would work with payments with watches that would be great
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

until relatively recently there was a European branch of VISA. The main VISA bought them up a couple of years ago
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Bizum works really great for ecommerce here in Spain. Can't wait for it to work across Europe. May it be through Wero or on its own.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

So it seems Portuguese MBWAY users can just keep using the current app and wait for the integration with Wero.

This seems, to me, a push from the private banking sector to try to prevent the Digital Euro adoption before this is a thing more than any concern about Europe's payment sovereignty.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

I tried it on two banks.. On both ends I reached out to the customer support. They filed an issue which both are not resolved until today..
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

the most annoying thing about Wero banks will probably not listen to: it's so immensely centered on those banking apps
in reply to Julian

@j_r@jwildeboer it's just a link to your internet banking, so if your bank has got a normal internet banking interface you can use that as well.

it just shows a big honking qr code by default because most people do their internet banking from their phone, but there's an equally button to pay from your browser

in reply to sijmen

at least "Sparkasse" seems to only support it via their app, not the online banking website
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

I've contacted two German NGOs regrading Wero (you can donate via Sepa, credit and Paypal). They said that they keep an eye on it but last time they tried it wasn't possible for them to implement it. I don't know about their use cases but I thought it's just a QR code.
I once wrote a ticket from within the Wero app about some iOS UI issues and they responded and somewhat improved things in the next update. So... thumbs up for #Wero. I will write them about the NGO's responses.
#wero
Unknown parent

Patrick Schmitz
of course it is already a large potential userbase to start with, and work out the kinks in the system. But to become successful, also for international payments, it has to be rolled out further, which will take time.
Unknown parent

Marcus Schwarz
@Larvitz Germany, Sparkasse. They don't give a damn about wero.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Nice to see alternatives to the visa/mastercard ecosphere. Also looking into #taler at the moment, but it seems that Wero has some more support. Hopefully they will indeed Europolize their service suppliers such as their cloud supplier.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

In NL iDeal (will be replaced by Wero) is already the de facto standard for online payments and Sepa Direct debit for recurring payments. Since a few year I also use Sepa Direct debit from NL for a few services in Germany.

Curious how Wero will work with POS payments. I read they also want to introduce this in the future.

Unknown parent

Marcus Schwarz
@Larvitz Ich wollte vor gut einem Jahr komplett weg in Richtung GLS (Ich hab nun nicht geguckt wie es mit wero bei denen ausschaut), aber die haben mir nichtmal die nΓΆtigen Unterlagen zum Unterschreiben geschickt innerhalb von 3 Monaten. Da hatte ich erstmal genug von Wechselabsichten. Aber vielleicht sollte ich das nochmal angehen.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

als in Spanien lebender: bizum ist so cool und praktisch und funktioniert. Von Person zu Person, aber auch bei Ikea etc. Ich hoffe wero und bizum finden zusammen… wahrscheinlich nicht…
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

#Wero is only available on the play store (which needs a google account), so no real sovereignty. Also, since last update the app crash on my phone at startup. So I cannot use the support in-app, nor do I want to send personal information though their useless chatbot on their website
#wero
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

tbh wero is not that much better than paypal.
I only see it as a temporary solution until more privacy friendly solutions like gnu taler can be used with euro.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

WERO sounds really interesting.

Are you aware of anybody who's written it up for the technical layman? It sounds like a P2P protocol between banks, but I can't imagine there's no central control at all.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

@farshidhakimy @mattb ... Which still has the effect that anybody who knows (or enumerates) your phone number gets your full legal name from your bank; no transaction or interaction from you necessary, not even a notification will happen.

I recommend using Wero, but please don't use your phone number for that, unless you consider it public.

Unknown parent

Louis Leblanc
yeah I was just kind of raging about european apps being only on the play store which I absolutely hate because of the lack of sovereignty πŸ˜…
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
Unknown parent

it _could_ help reducing the impact from foreign sanctions against individuals, but it doesn't make small payments more privacy friendly than sepa payments.

I don't think it should be recommended only because it is european, because even with wero, your payments are not really private.
Instead of PayPal knowing who you are paying, now one or two banks will know. And the data being in europe doesn't make it impossible to abuse it.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

hell yeah!

Write to banks about improvement. Be friendly, be specific, tell them you like their service. Tell them exactly what's wrong or what you're missing. They love constructive feedback.

I know because I did exactly this. And now the app store links from my bank's website to the Wero app, point to the actual Wero app. Not erroneously to their 2FA app. Small thing, but an improvement. Got a nice thank you email too 😎

Unknown parent

I do agree that sepa is better.
But my point was that sepa itself isn't privacy friendly.
I don't think we should embrace projects like wero when banks could instead work on gnu taler.
Wero being a success would mean that the future of money won't be privacy friendly in the eu, especially because they are also working on making nfc payments possible.
And unfortunately cash availability is getting worse.
People that prefer cash are already penalized today, f.e. at self checkouts.
Unknown parent

Parade du Grotesque πŸ’€

@prefec2
I think it's a misunderstanding.

I know wero is not Visa / MasterCard / Amex, I was trying to point out that the US credit card system is made out of these 3 companies.

Wero is, of course, its own thing.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Oh great, finally we’ll be able to be independent from the US, we just need a smartphone certified by Google or Apple...
And it looks like they’ve done everything possible to make their infrastructure independent from the US as well :
hosting-checker.net/websites/w…
Unknown parent

Jens Beyer
wow, danke dir! Das hΓ€tte ich nicht mal zu hoffen gewagt. Richtig gut.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Can someone help me understand why we need this given we have a fully functioning SEPA payment system? Arent these apps really only relevant in the US because their payement systems are so fragmented?
Unknown parent

panda4x4
Indeed, we already have a national system, but we're en route
epicompany.eu/media-insights/e…
Unknown parent

Krist van Besien
@jeroen Switzerland is part of the SEPA schema, so I can imagine that one day Twint will join this too. After all, all the QR codes do is tell you where to send money to. Its all software, and software is flexible...
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Had Payconiq before, which is now replaced by Wero. Works just as well, but now also outside of Belgium. Excellent!
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

#wero is like the #twint for Euros? I think there is a real need for it in the EU. Twint is a very important payment service in Switzerland, let's hope wero can be the same for countries with Euro
Unknown parent

Ysegrim
@farshidhakimy @mattb The thing is: Wero spills your legal name to anyone who has your phone number without needing physical proximity or an exchange of money. Tested between two different banks, with the other person far away.
Unknown parent

Florian :kt_sg: :swi_swi:
so how it is more than twint? I have twint from my bank and am able to send instantly to other people, pay my Galaxus order, pay my parking ticket, pay my cheese at a local cheese market by scanning a QR code.
Switzerland is also (partly) part of SEPA, I can send euros for free to another country, something that does not work the other way around because my Austrian bank has a huge fee for sepa transactions to Switzerland 😀
Unknown parent

Florian :kt_sg: :swi_swi:
I think it is more a question of currency than borders.
Wero is as I understand Euros only, and also not available in all Euro countries.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Leider bietet es meine Bank bisher nur von Privat zu Privat an. Im 2. Halbjahr sollen Online-Zahlungen dazu kommen. Ich hoffe, dass in naher Zukunft dann auch Vor-Ort-Zahlungen mΓΆglich sein werden.

Und klar habe ich diese WERO-Funktion in der ING-App bereits letztes Jahr aktiviert.

#WERO

#wero
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

I use it often to transfer money to friends/family but to replace Visa/Mastercard we’ll need the payment system which is not yet available.
And to replace PayPal, the vendor website should allow it as an option, so this will take some times.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Ich halte persΓΆnlich nichts von diesen Diensten.

Zwar wΓΌrde ich mir einen Gegensatz zu Stripe oder PayPal wΓΌnschen aber davon ist dieses Produkt Lichtjahre entfernt und war es wahrscheinlich auch nicht vorgesehen.

Es gilt eher zur Überwachung und Kontrolle der bürgerlichen Gelder.

Sprich: wenn ein Nachbar in der Not mal aushilft.

Wir mΓΌssen die Banken im Auge behalten, nicht umgekehrt !!!

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

the site says this is β€œto send and receive money between family and friends”, but we can do this with regular SEPA transfers. I don’t need Visa/Mastercard for that. I couldn’t even use Visa/Mastercard for that if I wanted to.
Unknown parent

abeorch
That's #Bizum. Haven't looked at it but hopefully its not as bad as #Wero - #SEPA payments are the answer.
Unknown parent

ruthpozuelo
Moving to another country just to get access to an app seems a bit drastic imo… what do i know πŸ€·β€β™€οΈ
Unknown parent

ruthpozuelo

Lovely, I need sweden to cooperate, the app is Swish. Then I could send money to Bizum users.
Till then I am out of options.

Would love for it to work though…

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

A first step could be that banks offering acceptance of #wero payments stopped making the price a secret.

My advice: start wero with really attractive prices (say, no more than 0.5 to 1% of payment) and make these prices Public.

#wero
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
Unknown parent

Joachim Tuchel

I mean the fees for #c2b or #b2b payments.

Wero will not survive with beer table rounds of exchanging a few bucks spontaneously.
Nice gimmick, but not a business model.

#c2b #b2b
Unknown parent

Joachim Tuchel

@kelvan

this really is a dream. Imagine keeping Visa/Mastercard and Apple/Google out of the business and simply pay by using yopur phone at the cashier in your favorite supermarket or kebab shop.

I would absolutely love to see this happen rather sooner than later.

Unknown parent

ruthpozuelo

Most users dont care or know about it.

This needs to be a EU initiative so banks are ”forced” into it. Same as they did with roaming.

Insane this is a thing in 2026…

Unknown parent

Open Risk

well there is a bit of a tussle between the banking industry and the central bank, as digital central bank cash could be quite disruptive, depending on its features. But the Chinese experience seems to be meh, much ado. In any case implementation, AML etc. will have to be by the private sector, so indeed it will be some integration and coexistence of protocols.

Very important indeed towards digital sovereignty. Imho more important in the longer term than the cloud stuff.

in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Ist mal wieder Henne/Ei. Bei meinen ΓΌblichen Shops (Galaxus/Otto/etc.) kann ich da nicht mit Zahlen.

Habe auf der Seite nix gefunden: GIbts da ne Liste wer das akzeptiert?

Unknown parent

M Berberich
Dann müßte aber jeder Shop für jede Bank einen extra Button haben? Klingt wenig praktikabel.
Unknown parent

GuacamOlΓ© πŸ₯‘

Ok. Das hatte ich tatsΓ€chlich immer falsch verstanden. Ich dachte der Shop mΓΌsste explizit Wero anbieten.

IBAN ist mir tatsΓ€chlich immer etwas lΓ€stig (Galaxus hat leider kein Sepa). Muss ja eh bald die Bank wechseln, weil die Triodos in Deutschland dicht macht, dann pack ich das auf die Must-Have-Liste

Unknown parent

daniel lublin
Sorry, had no intention to imply that. My rant was directed at the signees of the "landmark agreement", those thereabouts, or higher up.
Unknown parent

Stevez
Ah... I must have missed that news... πŸ™‚
Unknown parent

M Berberich
Aber irgendwie mΓΌssen ja die Zahlungsdaten wie Betrag und Kontonummer automatisch ΓΌbertragen werden. Vom Shop an die Bank.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Thanks man. After doing some research, this appeared to me to be the first financial service that don't feel like a scam, in a long time.

Why do I only hear about it now?

Unknown parent

koehntopp ~ :
I might if I had a chance to use it. comdirect does not want to play, yet.
in reply to Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Do note that Wero use hybrid pricing schemes with a percentage based fee. This is a contrast to flat fee schemes such as iDeal and bank transfers. I expect that Wero wallet will be more expensive for merchants.
Unknown parent

Darses
This is still a 100% price increase for a 50 euro transaction. From 0,19 to around 0,40 EUR. Or at least it will be, after the conversion price caps expire. In the end this is 'just' a consortium trying to making money. Not a noble effort to make the EU independent from other parties.
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