this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Digital Independence: Berlin wants to introduce European payment service Wero (www.heise.de)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Sepia@mander.xyz to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
72 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Berliners will soon have to pay fees and other payments to the administration via the payment system Wero. This was decided by the digital committee of the House of Representatives, according to a report by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB).

Wero -- a combination of We and Euro -- is a digital payment service that allows money to be transferred by providing a mobile phone number or an email address. It is intended to be positioned against US payment services such as Paypal.

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[โ€“] whaleross@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

From what I've gathered, there is a rushed effort to make this the EU standard payment system as soon as possible. When it is in place it will most likely be integrated by any online vendor that wants to do pan European business.

[โ€“] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is not nor will be EU standard. There are many existing solutions cooperating under the umbrella of European Payment Alliance (EuroPA). This includes Nordic countries, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland and couple more (Austria? Romania?). Wero was pushed by Germany that was late to the game and tried to impose their solution on everyone but looks like they gave up now and last year Wero and EuroPA signed a deal to cooperate. They will work on integrating existing solutions and Wero will be only used in France and Germany (unless something very strange happens and some country abandons their system).

[โ€“] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I already used it in Belgium though...? "Pushed by Germany" is a bold statement when the technology comes from iDeal/Bancontact which are Dutch and Belgian respectively and France is also a very large economy in the mix. Don't forget about Luxembourg as well. Benelux+FR+DE is hardly an ignorable market. France is already abandoning its existing solution for Wero. That's always been the plan.

Do you care to source your claims? My understanding both the EuroPA and EPI are a private agreement between banks, but only the latter has received explicit backing from the European Commission. The EuroPA does not seem nearly as ambitious and only seeks to streamline existing national SEPA-based online payments (unclear to me what that means exactly in practice), which is a nice short-term vision for sovereignty but probably not where the EU will want to be 5 or 10 years from now. The big selling point of Wero is that you can be shown a QR code and use it to pay easily and instantly with extremely low fees, regardless of your bank.

[โ€“] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You're right, it's also France and Benelux. It's just my gut feeling that Germany is behind the PR push. Other countries had similar solutions for years, many of them allowing you to pay online and in physical stores but I never saw anyone mention them as independent EU solutions. Now Wero comes which is basically the same, just a solution created by banks, and I see everywhere how European it is and how everyone should use it. It looked strange to me from the very beginning. How were they expecting all the banks in Spain for example to ditch Bizum they work on for years and move to something they don't control?

From what I see the entire history is very complicated with multiple splits and mergers but basically it's just private banks competing between themselves. Why did European Commission back EPI and not EuroPA? Again, it just my gut feeling but I'm guessing it's because Germany and France pushed for it, not because Wero is better or covers more people.

Anyway, my main point was that they signed a deal last year so it's pretty much clear now they will work together to cover all of EU instead of competing. So current solutions under EuroPA will stay where they are, the banks will not switch to Wero. We can stop pushing Wero as the pan-European solution and focus on integrations. Personally, the ability to send money to a bank in another country is not that important to me. It's the ability to pay locally, online and in stores that's matters.

[โ€“] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Wero is not "something the banks don't control". It's a SEPA-based standard, implemented by the participating banks. It originated with Dutch/Belgian technology and banking markets and Germany and France joined because their sorry asses didn't have anything better so it's a pure upgrade for them.

EuroPA is trying to work with fragmented markets, Wero is trying to establish a new standard. I fail to see EuroPA as anything other than a stepping stone to an eventually unified standard. Having a single currency but noeasy and practical way of spending it in a Austrian or Spanish online shop without going through American banks is an absolutely bonkers situation.

[โ€“] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

I mean that Spanish bank don't control it. With Bizum they can decide what to do. By switching to Wero they would basically have to implement whatever German and French banks tell them to. Imagine Wero decides to deprecate something or update the protocol by the end of the year. Suddenly you have bunch of work to do because EPI said so.

And I agree, they have to develop a common solution and having a single European standard would be great but the fact is that Bizum, Blik, Bancoman and many more were here before Wero they are not going to switch now just because France and Germany say so. We have to push for integration and for Wero to be one part of the system.