This is great, a step forward in European integration. But what I am really looking forward is an alternative for card payments in stores. Right now the only way to avoid non-European companies is paying with cash.
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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QR codes please so we don't need Google and apple Pay.
Payconiq in Belgium.l, but I think it's being retired in favor of Wero
Nice, isn’t it?
Yes! It means one more country unified by the same payment method :)
It is wire transfer with IBAN after all, but now with a convenience layer.
People keep saying Wero replaces Mastercard/ Visa, but I don’t really see how. It’s for online payments only? Wouldn’t it be replacing SEPA Instant then?
It doesn't replace cards unfortunately. This is indeed as you say, instant and easy bank transfers. I think when people say it replaces cards it's because we start to have more coutries connected by the same system and then you don't need to pay internationally with credit cards. Edit: For online shopping, mostly
The goal of wero is to be used at points of sales, between individuals and online. For the time being it's mainly between individuals, later on this year, it will be available to make online payments and towards the end of 2026, in shop payments will be opened. It's backbone is sepa instant indeed. Wero is just making it convenient as a contactless payment system based on qrcode or phone number instead of NFC.
I can't actually see how qrcode or phone number would be more convenient than NFC, but I can see how it'd be cheaper for the merchant if it means they can actually skip the card fees. I doubt us customers will see that 2% of course.
The goal of wero is to make it more convenient than doing a wire over sepa and become as convenient as NFC. The fees for the merchant are lower than visa or MasterCard.
But the real endgoal isn't all those aspects but to keep financial transactions independent of US jurisdiction, which isn't the case actually whether it's visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Google or Apple pay.
I mean we ewre pretty well of with the ideal system. I just hope that all other countries will implement this (and maybe cross border delivery) so the market can be more integrated.
This is basically what we're getting but with a different appearance, i believe there is a lot of overlap between Wero and iDeal
Yup I know. I just other countries are quick on the implementation, as we've had this for almost 2 decades... with the rest of Europe still stuck on the mastercards.