Bye bye Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and many others. They can go and play “America First”. We’ll have our own independent system by november 2025.
Without digital euro, there is already Wero app to replace PayPal, Visa and MasterCard. At least in theory… It’s a payment app that allows to pay and receive money via wire transfer from bank to bank without fee.
In practice, many banks are not enrolled in this program and I have yet to find a single business where I can pay this way. But at least replacing PayPal to send money to friends and family should be easy enough.
Here in Italy we have Satispay. It is already quite big. I guess there are still some limitations but these are quickly fixed. Direct bank transfers and reduced fees Satispay
I haven’t come across this one. Important difference: Wero is a EU government program, Satispay is operated by a private company.
Sure. Wero is interesting because it is an official program but I am worried that it may not be so widespread. Here in Italy I never heard of it. Never seen anyone using it. Maybe it is new?
A private company that is already enshittifying, to be precise. After years of gathering market share by being a zero commissions solution, lately they introduced commissions in some cases higher than what more consolidated payment solutions have.
There’s something similar in Spain called Bizum, created by banking institutions. Most Spanish banks implement it so your phone number is associated to your back account, so you can send and receive money instantly without fees to anyone just by knowing their phone number. Works really well.
I haven’t tried it. Core difference (on paper): Wero is a EU government program, unlike Klarna which is operated by a private company.
Isn’t Wero run by a group of EU banks? First time I hear about EU involvement. Afaik it is the counter effort to the digital Euro from these banks.
Edit: I see, the EU Commission is somewhat involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative but I don’t think they are the driving force behind Wero.
It is. However, they are… Well, let’s describe them as pretty US like in spirit.
What does this mean? In regard of their (who is “them”?) political affiliations? Simply the fact that they are not US based or owned lets me prefer them over PayPal.
If I want to use my main bank account with wero I have to link my mobile number to it and can’t use it for wero with my other account anymore, because that’s the only way my bank supports it. Only a small number of banks actually let you use the wero app with multiple sources. Makes it completely useless for me. Paypal isn’t the only one that can do that either. Basically everything not made by companies that primarily want to be banks can do this. E.g. Klarna.
The other thing is that I need something that works outside the EU. That’s where replacing paypal and credit cards is actually difficult. In my own country or in the EU, I have plenty of options.
only for German and French banks though, glad we have BLIK here in Poland
As far as I understand, Wero won’t replace Mastercard or Visa. It’s just a way to transfer money between people, like Swish or Vipps for example.
There are many private alternatives, but that is missing the point. An ECB backed digital coin takes away the private bank monopoly on printing digital money. It will be a great contribution to the commons and will decrease the power of private banks. It will also contribute to increased economic resilience.
I recommend reading the publications from positive money on this subject.
https://positivemoney.org/eu/publications/a-digital-euro-for-the-people/
