Comment by JumpCrisscross
4 hours ago
Banks in Spain, Italy and Portugal are joining what this article describes as France’s Wero system [1]. («L'initiative française Wero».)
Focus this year is on P2P transfers. Commerce is targeted for 2027. Given EuroPA has done a token amount of transactions to date, I’m not sure anyone should hold their breaths.
> Given EuroPA has done a token amount of transactions to date, I’m not sure anyone should hold their breaths.
The Spanish equivalent (Bizum) is merging into Wero is not a token use case, it's absolutely massive here. The absolute standard for peer-to-peer payments, more than 30 million users (>65% of the population), and they already launched contactless terminals for in-person commercial payments this month (https://euroweeklynews.com/2026/04/03/bizum-goes-contactless...).
Indeed Bizum is almost default now here in Spain, and for instance the equivalent in Sweden, Swish, is also almost default there. Went trekking into a national park, and the rangers will leave a number to Swish a bit of money if you want to use the fire pits; no other payment means.
I wouldn't say Swish is the default in Sweden because it doesn't support contactless payments. It is widely available though but many, many places only accept card/contactless payments. Of course, Swish is the default for person-to-person transfers, but not for payments.
Opposite is also true, some lower-value places (like fruitstands, street vendors) don't accept card/contactless because they don't want to pay visa mastercard fee.
I have no numbers but I would guess at least 50% of non-cash transactions are still card/contactless. I wouldn't be surprised if this number is 90%.
Wero is not French, but it has replaced France's Paylib. It's pretty awesome and seems to quickly have replaced all other apps (Lydia, PayPal) for small payments in my friend and family circles. I'm excited to see it expand to PoS payments.
From what I understand, Wero is identical to iDeal, which has been the standard Dutch internet payment system for decades. So I'm a bit surprised to see France claim ownership.
Wero is a initiative of a collection of banks from a handful of countries. Every country already had something like this, in some form of another, and now all these systems are getting merged into a common system.
No single country can claim ownership because it's an EU initiative. iDeal was one of the first and relatively easy systems across the EU, but it's hardly the predecessor.
Wero also does peer-to-peer transfers which iDeal doesn't (unless you use iDeal to pay for tikkies but that's still two apps). The new system is not just an iDeal rebranding.
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Can you confirm people in france actually use wero? I had heard of it every so often but basically zero people actually use it, my revolut app has a feature to use wero but never used it. I mean would be great, getting rid of CC fees could literally lower grocery prices by 1-2%.
I use it for basically every payment with friends.
The greatest force of Wero is that, being from a bank consortium and not "another app", you can send money to people that don't even know the system exists as long as you have their phone number because the money will go straight to the bank account registered with this phone number.
You don't need to register to the service to receive money so basically anyone holding an account in a compatible bank can receive funds instantly. Which means, as the person sending the money, you don't have to tell your friends to install it.
I can only speak from my experience, but yes, multiple people (a few friends, people at work, and my uncle) have suggested to "make [me] a Wero" lately to pay me back small amounts. The fact that's it's integrated into the existing banking apps helps.
Every single friend to friend transfer around me is done via wero these days. And between business SEPA more and more.
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iDeal is an enormous success in the Netherlands so if banks implement it as well in other countries then it will definitely be competitive with credit cards for online payments
Wero is the pan-European successor to ideal. Other countries had something similar. We are now converging on using the same technique and mechanism everywhere. It also takes a bite out of payment providers like adyen because they managed the different payment methods for shops. In the future you only need to use Wero.
iDeal is in the process of being replaced by Wero, which is pretty cool!
Wero sounds weirdo, but iDeal sounds like a confession you sell drugs.
Ehm. Wero is partially based on the Dutch iDEAL system, which has been hugely successful.
Pretty much all purchases from Dutch webshops are paid through iDEAL as well as many P2P payments. It's also supported by international payment services (iirc Stripe and Shopify).
If they manage to replicate it in other European countries, Werk will be huge. Moreover, it's supported by many banks.
Wero – Digital payment wallet, made in Europe - https://www.werotracker.eu/
I wish Wero was a real alternative but it seem to be a thin wrapper around Bank APIs and SEPA instant transactions. It has pretty much non of the functionality that PayPal or other services give. It just makes it easier to send money with a phone number instead of an IBAN. My bank doesn't even support it.
Isn't a wrapper making the ergonomics better valuable enough?
In Sweden we have Swish for domestic transfers, if I could use Swish (or if Wero took it over) the same way to transfer money to my friends living in other EU countries I'd be very, very happy.
What kind of functionality PayPal offers that is much better? Using cards instead of direct debit?
That’s what EMPSA[1] is trying to push. But Swish aren’t particularly interested in playing an active part.[2]
[1] https://empsa.org/
[2] https://nyheter24.se/nyheter/ekonomi/privatekonomi/1452366-d...
I don't think it is. If you want people to move, you need to give them something. And SEPA but with phone numbers isn't it. At least not for me. Especially if it means that I am dependent on whether my bank implemented it.
I have recently seen people surprised when they sent a Wero transaction and the other party could see their IBAN.
Vipps which is available in Sweden supports this system.
I know the Swedish government is also pressuring swish to integrate with vipps. So I guess you'll have this ability soon.
Isn't that much better than PayPal? Why would i want my money to end up in some intermediate PayPal account?
PayPal isn't without flaws but I think buyer protections and the obfuscation of the banking info are genuine features for people. I would like a real competitor to PayPal in Europe. Maybe even something that is not from a private company.
What I fear is that people will try Wero, see that it's not what they wanted and then never go back. But maybe I'm wrong.
> non of the functionality that PayPal or other services give
What functionality are you looking for exactly?
I use paypal to transfer money to other accounts & pay for online shopping, possibly in other valuta. In my opinion Wero (earlier I used IDeal) is easier then paypal for this purpose
> What functionality are you looking for exactly?
* Buyer protection
* Obfuscation of my banking data (IBAN)
* Having access to it with my bank
* Not needing to share my contact list
At the moment I don't see much improvement over an instant SEPA transaction. Since both parties will see each other's IBAN anyways with Wero I can just give out my IBAN.
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Isn't the whole point of existence of WERO that European banks got scared of digital Euro and started implementing something to get in the market first?
> My bank doesn't even support it.
It's not like it's that difficult to implement. Most Brazilian banks implemented a similar protocol in months.
Tell that to my bank. I am a software developer. I could probably do it. But I don't work there.
What's the benefit of this over contactless payments?
It works over the internet.
How does it work when you need to pay for something in person? (what contactless is for)
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