2d ago

My Experience with Wero : Ease and Convenience

I used Wero for the first time yesterday, and I found it very easy to link to my bank account (just one click on a pop-up). The app is really convenient.

I visited their website and discovered that Wero is currently available in most banks in France, Belgium, and Germany. Their goal is to create a payment system across all of Europe, enabling online payments, in-store payments, or even replacing IBAN transfers.

Wero website

" Wero is part of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), supported by 14 major European banks and the two largest payment processors in Europe. Our goal is to create a new payment system for Europe, for the future."

I think Wero could replace Visa and Mastercard in our daily payments. I would like to hear your thoughts on this. If you are in France, Belgium, or Germany, you can activate it. Initially, this will support the project, as it is not yet fully functional to replace the payment methods of all European countries.

34 comments

Make sure that your device is not 'rooted'. If the operating system is an Android variant (also called a 'custom ROM'), such as LineageOS or Pixel Experience, then the wero app can’t be installed for security reasons.
(cf. https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599098295313-I-m-seeing-this-error-message-Your-device-does-not-meet-our-security-requirements)
I can't use it but it looks neat! I hope these companies will one day realise that requiring the user's device to be an opaque jail controlled by a usually foreign third-party isn't good security practice :/
- Also, apparently the app can't open on my phone. I checked the logcat and it't trying to make a division by 0 which instantly crashes the app, and I can't tell them because you need to contact support through the app to be in contact with someone.
  Thankfully, my bank apps supports it so I can do it this way (even with root) but it's a bit dangerous if you can't access the app for any reason and can't talk to a human at all, that would lock you out of your money

It seems each merchant also needs to integrate it into their checkout. It looks good so really hope it takes off but right now it looks a bit like this.
- Haha yeah you're not wrong I'm just pessimistic
  
  Good one, I'll save it
- I hope that's not the case, ahah, but honestly, I don't think I've ever seen such broad acceptance. As always, the banks are the ones who decide, and it seems like everything is already set in stone.

How does it stack against polish Blik? That one is supported by possibly every bank in Poland, all payment gateways, POS, mobile app, and so on. Hell, I purchased steam games with Blik, and if I see a shop not supporting it,I don't do business. Like, even tiny businesses in Poland that didn't bother to get card terminals in the past, I can pay with Blik. I use it to pay for my son's swimming lessons, cleaning services, i recently used it to withdraw cash from ATM - unnecessarily, because the place I was going of course accepted Blik. I bought my mother flowers on the other end of the country using just sms and blik... and all that without fancy marketing, shit just works.
- It is obvious that there are many ways to make digital payments, to the point that each European country has its own payment network.
  Wero’s current goal is neither to replace your bank nor to become a company that controls your money. In my view, Wero should be seen as a payment network, similar to Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc.
  If BLIK (which I am not familiar with) works well for you, that’s great. Wero will probably not replace it but rather to act as an additional layer.
  The main advantage lies in European interoperability. If you travel to another European country, BLIK will probably be of no use to you (it appears to rely on the Visa or Mastercard network, depending on the bank, for payments outside of Poland). As a Belgian, if I want to use Bancontact outside of Belgium, I either have to withdraw cash before my trip, pay transaction fees for each payment, or use my Mastercard. In this regard, Wero seems to be a relevant solution.
  What do you think?
  
  It seems to me that in country blik is using a joint company wherein the banks have stake, as well as Mastercard has a stake. Outside of Poland Mastercard is the "transport layer" so to say.
  If then Wero wants to be an implementation of this lower-lever transaction network,thais is good news, as it can be probably integrated in parallel/addition to Mastercard when we have a falling out. But it's not the impression that I hot from the website- to me it appeared as a consumer application.

I learned that they use Instant Payment from one IBAN to another. I can already fire up my banking app and send instant money to your IBAN in 30 seconds. So why do we need a middle man for that? Isn't that just another company between my bank account and you're bank account, making something that already exist a little bit more convenient? Who pays them?
- Wero is aiming for EU-wide interoperability, so you don’t have to worry about whether your bank supports it or if cross-border transfers are a hassle. Also, not all banks offer instant transfers for free. Wero will remove that friction while keeping merchants, not users, on the hook for fees, just like card networks, but European. (For now banks are paying) Wero is not a middle man but a standardised platform (like Visa or Mastercard)

I've been so excited about this. Just wish they would spread to more countries already. I'm impatiently waiting :)
- They still have a long way to go, but it's worth noting that they are very fast (Wero was launched in July 2024 and has already won over 14 major banks).
  Their roadmap: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/news-insights/insight/wero-shaping-future-european-payments
  I think it is imperative for those who already have access to use this payment method whenever they have the opportunity, to show our interest and convince European banks that this solution is viable.
  
  That is so good and inspiring to see. And agreed! The more people who can use it start using it the faster it will grow. Really looking forward to this.

Thanks for sharing. Seems like Spain is going to adopt it as well, let's hope

Not supported by my banks yet, but here's hoping.

wero is a joke on so many levels. for one they require you to have an account with either scumbags google or apple to even download their app. it is not the gsf but that they do not offer a direct download of the app. so much about privacy. second volksbank is involved and they are scumbags too because their branch DZB prevented an alternative to visa. fuck em.

They really should get the domain we.ro
Imagine, you need a payment and just send a link like we.ro/john67
- This domain is no longer available. Maybe you are not the first to think about this feature. ^^
  
  I hope so 😁

yup its based on the popular dutch payment service iDEAL
funny enough because we have such a good working system already we will be the last to be plugged in lol. Somewhere in 2026 iDEAL will be replaced with it

Welp, I wish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Taler was here already

Reading the site it seems it's just another way to send money by using phone number. So, something that already exists in my country for all banks universally and nowadays a new alternative also came to the table which is SPIN which every bank is also already integrating. At least the branding and the page is cool and modern.
- Wero is not just another way to send money using a phone number. Unlike existing national solutions, Wero aims for European interoperability, which many local solutions lack. Most national systems are limited to a single country, while Wero (for now) seeks to unify P2P payments across Europe. In the future, it will allow us to pay in stores and online, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the need for American solutions such as Visa, Mastercard,Stripe, ...
  
  The only thing we don't have is the cross country european interoperability. And if this system does that maybe it will be useful.
  If they want to implement that here they will just probably contract or use the local provider that already does all of it.
  What I really wish from these systems was to have a handle that is not the phone number, now that would be useful.

We had something like that in Poland for quite a while... so I bet it'll take ages to get it working here :(

I wonder how much will it take to spread in Italy, we're slow in everything lol
- Quote from wikipedia (I haven't found this information on any other source) ‘Other banks are interested in offering this service, like the Dutch bank ING, as well as telepayment service providers such as Worldline in France and Nexi in Italy.’
  
  The footer of the website also shows a list of banks to be enrolled, such as ING indeed or Société Générale
- I was thinking the same thing. Hopefully we won't the usual tailwind of Europe

It's supported by the Belgian Branch of my bank, but not the other national branches.
- This is the case for many banks; we are in a trial period. For example, in Belgium, at ING, Wero has almost entirely replaced Payconiq (national payment method), while it seems that ING NL is still using iDEAL. It can be read in certain articles that the central bank of the Netherlands is awaiting the success of Wero's implementation in the test territory before replacing iDEAL in the Netherlands.

34 comments