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.
Too bad that, for Italy, BancomatPay joined instead of Satispay, an app that's actually used (especially in the North). Almost nobody uses BancomatPay.
The market for these kind of apps in Europe is very divided (just in the Nordics you have Swish, MobilePay and Vipps) but the dent in MC/Visas dominance is significant today. In 2 years, Klarna, Swish and Vipps will be more common both in e-commerce and POS that MC/Visa.
Do we need a pan-EU standard? I'm actually not so sure, but yes it would be nice when traveling.
Pretty much was already available via SEPA. We had a similar system in the Netherlands called ideal which has now been subsumed by Wero to join an European alternative. In the end the idea is simple. All participating bank accounts have lorum/nostrum accounts for the pairs. Whenever the Wero transaction succeeds the money is wired internally directly. I’m not sure whether this mechanism will be replaced by SEPA direct debit entirely.
Wero rides on SEPA SCT Inst, already mandatory EU-wide. P2P will land
fast; merchant displacement is hard because card interchange funds the
chargeback layer SEPA doesn't replicate.
Wero is basically an EU-wide version of the Dutch iDeal system, which in my opinion is the gold standard of how internet payment should work. I shouldn't have to fill in any card numbers on the site of the merchant (which is unsafe). Instead, the payment should redirect me to my bank, where I authorize the payment through my own bank's security system. I've always been annoyed by the need to type in sensitive card info on all sorts of merchant sites. I hope that with EU-wide use, Wero will receive much broader support now.
iDeal is superb and the most convenient payment method I've dealt with.
Wero claims that they won't support paying through a browser, and that it will be tied to either Google or Apple, which seems like a huge step back from iDeal in its currents state.
I'm legitimately curious how these American payment companies held onto their worldwide dominance for so long. I'm used to seeing the sign at restaurants of all the other cards they accept, but for so long I've only ever seen Amex, Discover, Visa, and Mastercard in folks' hands.
Soon: "President Trump issued a new tariff today on all non-US payment systems, saying `We have the best protectionist economy in the world, it's really great`"
This is the EU equivalent of Zelle, but pushing into merchant payments and owned and run by the banks.
When the telcos tried to compete with the cloud providers by offering OpenStack they learned the business wasn't as simple as offering 10-15 services with some racks. I can imagine the same hidden complexity for payment rails
On the other hand regulations have taken too much power away from merchants and Wero could succeed with more merchant friendly terms. They are doing 3-legged payments so they are not subject to as many European regulations as Visa/Mastercard.
The banks will be fine. Australia implemented a similar system a while back (NPP/Osko) which is a standard adopted by 100+ banks. It was designed as a replacement for standard bank transfers which usually took a couple of days.
Now, even transfers in the tens of thousands move instantly. This was also a response to apps like Venmo potentially entering the market - now you can just pay to a phone number or email, as long as it’s been explicitly linked to a bank account. This is by far the preferred way to send money here and third party apps are not common.
They’ve also now introduced PayTo which manages debits and payments online with no fee. You simply approve the transaction in your bank’s app.
Australia also has widespread Visa and Mastercard use, but Eftpos has always existed - which is a fee free alternative around since the 1980s. It supports contactless, but that isn’t widespread due to weak international support and can only be used with debit cards.
The downside is that new features need to be implemented by each bank app, but it’s been interesting to see some of the smaller credit unions collaborating for example.
I'd like to take this opportunity to share with you all that Wero is called Wero because Euro is pronounced "you-ro" and when you share your you-ro it becomes a we-ro.
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[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadFocus 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.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
Do we need a pan-EU standard? I'm actually not so sure, but yes it would be nice when traveling.
Have you seen the new money app? It's on Tubu. It's on Weeno. I'm on Dippy but my friend is on Poob. Poob has it for you.
And even those of us who have activated it, have hardly used it for the most part, or hve concerns.
Europe needs to be functionally as independent as possible.
I suppose some added sovereignty is to be expected when your closest ally extorts, threatens annexation and slams you with tariffs.
Wero claims that they won't support paying through a browser, and that it will be tied to either Google or Apple, which seems like a huge step back from iDeal in its currents state.
I wrote about this a few months back (including actual sources for their claims): https://whynothugo.nl/journal/2026/02/25/entrenching-america...
When the telcos tried to compete with the cloud providers by offering OpenStack they learned the business wasn't as simple as offering 10-15 services with some racks. I can imagine the same hidden complexity for payment rails
On the other hand regulations have taken too much power away from merchants and Wero could succeed with more merchant friendly terms. They are doing 3-legged payments so they are not subject to as many European regulations as Visa/Mastercard.
Now, even transfers in the tens of thousands move instantly. This was also a response to apps like Venmo potentially entering the market - now you can just pay to a phone number or email, as long as it’s been explicitly linked to a bank account. This is by far the preferred way to send money here and third party apps are not common.
They’ve also now introduced PayTo which manages debits and payments online with no fee. You simply approve the transaction in your bank’s app.
Australia also has widespread Visa and Mastercard use, but Eftpos has always existed - which is a fee free alternative around since the 1980s. It supports contactless, but that isn’t widespread due to weak international support and can only be used with debit cards.
The downside is that new features need to be implemented by each bank app, but it’s been interesting to see some of the smaller credit unions collaborating for example.