It's not for you. It's for companies. They're implementing it first for person-to-person transactions just to test the system. Wouldn't want a big corp to lose millions of euro because of a bug!
Some years ago I had to execute an international money transfer by SWIFT to someone in South America from our European bank:
Unfortunately, I did a copy & paste error by reusing the prior version and not overwriting all the data - I forgot to replace the bank account number, but name & co was OK.
The money didnt arrive, customer was getting angrier and angrier. Esp. since this transaction was related to crypto and back then was one of first BTC highflyertimes.
A couple of days later I received a message from the bank, asking for having a quick call. In the meantime, they had called the customer to investigate even more.
Quickly we found out that it was just my mistake by copying & re-using the form. I sent them a SWIFT message confirming what was discussed and that the right account number is indeed 123 instead of 678.
In the end, all of us were happy, even with a little delay.
Im 100% sure that this type of cooperation would never work on any of these crypto stacks :-))
Na, what you dont get it, is, how "classic" some banks working in some parts of their backend. Manual steps for non-standard-processes are quite often implemented.
Do not know what this realworld example has to with any of your specs? Apart from that, Im working in this field...
Apple and Google are bound to Visa/Mastercard's rules. There is basically no EC without the V/M, and Apple and Google won't be happy just selling hardware. How are you paying for your apps and services ?
Looking at it from the privacy lens doesn't help when it's a matter of directly controlling the money flow.
Mastercard pretty much depended on Eurocard/Europay for it's European reach (and vice versa) before the 2 merged, European institutions didn't have a problem selling out important infrastructure because Europeans overall trusted American stability and cooperation.
So many people commenting that seem to miss what this is. It's the merging of national systems to simply allow a second option. Meaning no influence oversize from the duopoly. See steam news with visa for an example of then throwing their weight.
These all require Google or Apple devices both by the seller and the buyer. Wero explicitly does not even support non-Google Android devices.
I'm not sure that replacing Visa and MasterCard is really that big of a sovereignty move considering the pervasive dominance American mobile OS tech has. It's a much harder ecosystem to replace.
Updating an app to not require the Play Store is a lot easier than switching payment provider backend.
Wero can fix the dependency on Google in a day, I don't think the dependency on Google is as bad as the broader dependency on Mastercard/Visa is.
That said, I'd much prefer a European implementation of the same remote attestation APIs that Google uses to convince payment processors that phones can be trusted to manage finances.
On iOS you don't really have a choice so until someone runs Linux on an iPhone, iPhone users are just screwed.
The hardware is harder to replace, but payment systems aren’t intrinsically tied to the operating systems, yet, except for encryption , which is handled on-device.
They don't though, unless I'm missing something stupid there is parity across all national options. And here for example the bank itself has Bancomat AND Visa as an option to pay by at a POS or online etc.
This will allow me to use my card online with a merchant in Germany for example and use my Bancomat process (whatever the new interface is called) will be the gateway.
Heartily agree, even for Americans. I realize there's economies of scale and network effects, I'm not a libertarian, but the US electronic money situation is very bad. No pressure to innovate, be secure, be anonymous, and a small number of business people (out of touch CxOs) arbitrarily debank people and market segments.
> I'm not sure that replacing Visa and MasterCard is really that big of a sovereignty move considering the pervasive dominance American mobile OS tech has
So 'having an apple or Google phone' is equivalent to you to 'have every individual payment processed by visa/mastercard'?
Processing a payment means knowing who sent what to whom. I'm sure you don't care if I know what phone you have. But can I see every bank transaction you make? Every single purchase? No biggie, right?
Aside from the fact that this is maybe the next dependency to drop.
Usually, a product that costs $100 costs me the same $100 regardless of the payment processors involved (and $100 cash when none are involved), so I can't see where "lower prices for consumers" could come from.
I've seen few places accepting only cash or cards from a local payment processor. And it looks like local payment processor takes about 0.16% from each transaction.
So I assume that if they were accepting more expensive cards, they might've increase the price of the $100.16 product for me, to offset their costs.
And yes, I also heard that payment processors have rules that require merchants to have the same price no matter what payment processor (or cash) customer will choose.
well, I mean, lower prices can come if merchants stop supporting Visa/Mastercard and support only cheaper options :)
Alternatively, merchants can give users more cashback points for using their preferred way of paying. Not sure how this flies with payment processor rules, but I've seen it in the wild.
In this case, people who don't have local cheaper option won't be able to buy from them.
Cash/local-card-only might be OK for a grocery store in rural area only serving the locals, less so for a coffee shop in tourist centre of a major city.
Instant settlement. The new systems usually run at the level of the reserve currency, or highest national bank.
In Australia the system is the NPP, and the public face is Osko/PayID, so you can use an email or mobile identifier to instantly transfer money between people's accounts. Australia is rolling out PayTo, which is a B2C form of direct debit, which is revocable by the customer but allows for subscriptions and other payments.
The next step will be offering a bank account with PayID/PayTo, a contactless form of payment stored in a Google/Apple/Samsung Wallet, and a line of credit.
Which is all that a credit card is.
This announcement is about similar national systems evolving into cross-European payments. So an instant payment from a French bank account to a Spanish bank account via contactless payment terminal without using the Visa/MC "rails".
In Thailand it's promptpay
Agreed. That seems to be a tangible benefit, but only for cross-border transactions between individuals and not for purchases. Since purchases are already instantly settled for the user. And domestic individual to individual transactions are already easy with the current systems.
And from the article it seems that some non-Euro currencies will also be offered in this new system. Which is a tangible user benefit.
Otherwise, in the past ~10 years I haven't had any problem with cross border EUR transfers using SEPA or even non-EUR transfers using services like Wise. And if it's an individual to individual transfer then instant settlement isn't as necessary as when it's a purchase.
> Which is all that a credit card is.
Credit and debit cards also offer fraud protection and many times cashback as well. Especially on cross-border transactions (ie online shopping), the fraud protection is essential. I have never used a credit card in my life, but a Visa/Mastercard debit card is one of the most practical things the modern world offers.
If they follow the Swish/Vipps method, it's usually connected to your phone so it both enables p2p payments (that Visa/Mastercard doesn't offer), but also QR-code based payments (scan-and-sign) that are complexity-wise about the same as Apple-pay,etc (usually with a bit higher security requirements).
One thing I'd like to check: what are the actual exclusion rules for these systems? The Visa/MC threat to anything deemed vaguely adult content is well documented, but what is and is not allowed on Wero?
European banks are trash and I dont believe the new payment system will be anything that will benefit the customer. It will only benefit european merchants (schwarz group for example) at the detriment of customer.
Europe is a continent in decline. I get more benefits from a Thai bank holding there a tiny amount of money than European 50bn group.
Even if Europe issues its own cards and payment system I expect them to be just shitty and me being charged extra fee abroad trying to pay with it on POS.
The old school banks in Europe (or everywhere?) are trash, correct, but the neobanks are arguably some of the best in the world (Revolut, Monzo, Starling, N26, also Wise, etc). And open banking, regulations against fees, strong consumer protection, etc, are all points against your concern that this’ll only favour merchants. I wouldn’t count on it.
I use this system daily. It's the spanish/european venmo. In some countries all banks apps are in this system, so it shows which phone contacts are in the system and you can send or request money through that.
It's just this nice thing for sending money. Why are you all losing your marbles here?
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 20.3 ms ] threadUnfortunately, I did a copy & paste error by reusing the prior version and not overwriting all the data - I forgot to replace the bank account number, but name & co was OK.
The money didnt arrive, customer was getting angrier and angrier. Esp. since this transaction was related to crypto and back then was one of first BTC highflyertimes.
A couple of days later I received a message from the bank, asking for having a quick call. In the meantime, they had called the customer to investigate even more.
Quickly we found out that it was just my mistake by copying & re-using the form. I sent them a SWIFT message confirming what was discussed and that the right account number is indeed 123 instead of 678.
In the end, all of us were happy, even with a little delay.
Im 100% sure that this type of cooperation would never work on any of these crypto stacks :-))
Do not know what this realworld example has to with any of your specs? Apart from that, Im working in this field...
Looking at it from the privacy lens doesn't help when it's a matter of directly controlling the money flow.
I'm not sure that replacing Visa and MasterCard is really that big of a sovereignty move considering the pervasive dominance American mobile OS tech has. It's a much harder ecosystem to replace.
Wero can fix the dependency on Google in a day, I don't think the dependency on Google is as bad as the broader dependency on Mastercard/Visa is.
That said, I'd much prefer a European implementation of the same remote attestation APIs that Google uses to convince payment processors that phones can be trusted to manage finances.
On iOS you don't really have a choice so until someone runs Linux on an iPhone, iPhone users are just screwed.
This will allow me to use my card online with a merchant in Germany for example and use my Bancomat process (whatever the new interface is called) will be the gateway.
If you don't, two lock-ins and network effects reinforce each other.
So 'having an apple or Google phone' is equivalent to you to 'have every individual payment processed by visa/mastercard'?
Processing a payment means knowing who sent what to whom. I'm sure you don't care if I know what phone you have. But can I see every bank transaction you make? Every single purchase? No biggie, right?
Aside from the fact that this is maybe the next dependency to drop.
So I assume that if they were accepting more expensive cards, they might've increase the price of the $100.16 product for me, to offset their costs.
And yes, I also heard that payment processors have rules that require merchants to have the same price no matter what payment processor (or cash) customer will choose.
Alternatively, merchants can give users more cashback points for using their preferred way of paying. Not sure how this flies with payment processor rules, but I've seen it in the wild.
In this case, people who don't have local cheaper option won't be able to buy from them.
Cash/local-card-only might be OK for a grocery store in rural area only serving the locals, less so for a coffee shop in tourist centre of a major city.
Regional Financial autonomy is a very attractive benefit.
In Australia the system is the NPP, and the public face is Osko/PayID, so you can use an email or mobile identifier to instantly transfer money between people's accounts. Australia is rolling out PayTo, which is a B2C form of direct debit, which is revocable by the customer but allows for subscriptions and other payments.
The next step will be offering a bank account with PayID/PayTo, a contactless form of payment stored in a Google/Apple/Samsung Wallet, and a line of credit.
Which is all that a credit card is.
This announcement is about similar national systems evolving into cross-European payments. So an instant payment from a French bank account to a Spanish bank account via contactless payment terminal without using the Visa/MC "rails". In Thailand it's promptpay
Agreed. That seems to be a tangible benefit, but only for cross-border transactions between individuals and not for purchases. Since purchases are already instantly settled for the user. And domestic individual to individual transactions are already easy with the current systems.
And from the article it seems that some non-Euro currencies will also be offered in this new system. Which is a tangible user benefit.
Otherwise, in the past ~10 years I haven't had any problem with cross border EUR transfers using SEPA or even non-EUR transfers using services like Wise. And if it's an individual to individual transfer then instant settlement isn't as necessary as when it's a purchase.
> Which is all that a credit card is.
Credit and debit cards also offer fraud protection and many times cashback as well. Especially on cross-border transactions (ie online shopping), the fraud protection is essential. I have never used a credit card in my life, but a Visa/Mastercard debit card is one of the most practical things the modern world offers.
Europe is a continent in decline. I get more benefits from a Thai bank holding there a tiny amount of money than European 50bn group.
Even if Europe issues its own cards and payment system I expect them to be just shitty and me being charged extra fee abroad trying to pay with it on POS.
Please, no low effort trolling.
UPI now interoperates with other equivalent new payment platforms in Asia.
It's just this nice thing for sending money. Why are you all losing your marbles here?