Birbla

Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

Sign in
  • Hacker News
  • iDeal is amazing and it's great it's coming to the rest of Europe, even if they gave it a worse name.

    Here in the Benelux it's the go-to payment option for ecommerce.

    I think this will be a much bigger threat to Visa and Mastercard than the oft-promised digital Euro.

    by vrganj
  • I agree it's always fast and convenient! It doesn't have the buyer protection you get with a credit card (it debits from your account immediately), but for most purchases that is fine.
    by jdblair
  • > I think this will be a much bigger threat to Visa and Mastercard than the oft-promised digital Euro

    Wasn't the digital Euro specifically crippled due to banks lobbying against it to promote Wero instead?

    by flexagoon
  • I don't think the name is that bad. iDeal sounds very dated to me as a native English speaker.
    by patrickmcnamara
  • I actually like Wero a lot as a name, sound like virtual euro to me.
    by V__
  • > I think this will be a much bigger threat to Visa and Mastercard than the oft-promised digital Euro.

    Not just the American card networks but also a threat to the US Dollar as the reserve currency and the power it gives to the USA

    Hence why USA is unhappy with Brazil over their Pix system

    by fsuts
  • Afaik the system is being consolidated

    https://epicompany.eu/media-insights/ideal-to-phase-into-wer...

    « iDEAL will begin rebranding to iDEAL | Wero in 2026 »

    by thibaut_barrere
  • Why is this news? In the Netherlands the ideal system is already replaced by Wero ? What am I missing.
    by janandonly
  • Yea was scratching my head why this is news, 90% of dutch webshop for the past 15 years have had ideal (precursor to wero) lol

    Seems to be a weird marketing article

    by NietTim
  • Dutch iDeal|Wero uses incompatible QR codes and a bank selection flow compared to international Wero. The real Wero implementation comes next year.

    They're trying to ease in Dutch customers to the Wero brand, but in the mean time they're confusing every tourist or immigrant with their wero-but-not-wero system.

    by jeroenhd
  • It’s not about the Netherlands, that’s what you seem to be misunderstanding
    by dgellow
  • Apparently, and I quote from the article (definitely not an LLM):

    "Decathlon didn’t just add a new payment button to its German checkout page. It handed European banks their first big-box sporting goods test case at a moment when competition in digital payments is intensifying and the push for EU-made payment infrastructure is growing."

    I've been able to make payments for sporting goods shops here in Finland with a push-payment-local-bank-account flow from the checkout for years, but clearly they weren't European enough.

    by alibarber
  • God I wish the US had a digital payment system that we could all basically agree on. Having Apple Pay vs Google Pay vs Zelle vs Paypal vs Venmo vs all the others is annoying as hell.
    by TulliusCicero
  • We do, it’s called FedNow, it’s been live for some time. Instant payments for a few cents per transaction, up to $10M per transfer. Why don’t financial institutions switch to it? To keep getting the fees they’re accustom to.

    Other countries are working to avoid the US financial infra rake and grift, but you’re captured by it if you’re stuck in the US unfortunately, because the US political will does not exist to compress profits for the financial services industry.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48415854

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48416032

    FedNow Is Live - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 - July 2023 (1022 comments)

    by toomuchtodo
  • It is one of these instances where « let the market decide » is not necessarily the best option on the long run.
    by thibaut_barrere
  • The first time I read "US store X supports Apple Pay or Google Pay now" I was really confused. I didn't know that was a thing. Here (NL) contactless payments works with every debit card, physical or stored Apple Google/Pay, in every store. There is no difference between payment providers, everyone offers contactless payments and it works with every bank.

    (The only exception are credit cards, but they are not used a lot, mostly for online purchases outside The Netherlands or when renting a car abroad.)

    by microtonal
  • Wow, very cool "The European way to pay online." - so surely they are on f-droid or have an apk download like Signal with build signatures published on their website! Oh, no - they require you to have a Google account and Play Store on your mobile device. Well, false advertising again. Disappointing, but why am I not surprised. Thank you, but no.
    by twothreeone
  • Related:

    Lidl Introduces the European Payment Method Wero in Germany

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060205

    by ChrisArchitect
  • Wero shows that marketing is everything. It's just regular bank transactions with a much larger fee. We could have had EPC QR codes and similar completely free technologies instead.
    by dinkelberg
  • I mean, that was always possible and many offered that. Wero offers the PayPal style integrated flow, QR code scanning from your banking app is slightly higher friction
    by Semaphor
  • Not really, the UX is the differentiator. That's why neobanks like N26 are popular as you can just send money to your friends via email / phone number but it only works if they are on the same bank.

    With Wero it's across all banks, building on the recent instant transfer that is being rolled out quickly while still having the same, familiar UX as PayPal or other apps like that while being a EU solution.

    by dewey
  • > We could have had EPC QR codes and similar completely free technologies instead.

    Technically you can anyway, I used that a few months ago. Bank app support is the big impediment (https://epc-qr.eu/bankreviews/)

    by masklinn
  • They just need to have smaller fees than Visa/Mastercard.

    Paying by SEPA direct debit in a store checkout situation seems insane. Even with instant payments it can take 20 seconds which is too long. Add to that the fact that users need to log into their online banking and the unfair leveling of risk onto the consumer.

    by jojomodding
  • As always with standards EPC QR is not only one in europe. In Czechia for example the QR codes are extremely popular but since they were introduced before EPC QR they are in SPAYD format. I think they became popular because instant payments between czech banks were introduced sooner than in the SEPA network.

    Maybe that's why they were separate formats BUT afaik even SPAYD uses IBAN account numbers. So I have no idea why there are both of these, they are just syntax. The main difference being that SPAYD is key:value pair separated by * and EPC is fixed position, line delimited. I personally think SPAYD is more human readable and extensible BUT i guess less efficient. Not that it would matter i would prefer the one that's universal.

    by omnimus
  • Wero’s website says they don’t charge fees

    So who is charging the fees?

    by fsuts
  • This type of thing (scan QR code) is how basically all payments were done when I was recently in China, via wechat or alipay (either you show your QR code for big shops, or scan their QR code for small shops / vendors. They can just print them out if they want and hang a copy).

    I found it superior to other systems I've used in basically every way. Particularly for small market stalls -- I scan their QR code, I enter how much I want to send them. They never get my details, I don't have to trust they didn't fat-finger the price. It also makes it amazingly easy to send money to friends, just scan their code and send them their share of dinner.

    by CJefferson
  • I would claim the main cause why it is more complicated is having VAT and KYC/AML requirements. Transactions can be much easier if you ignore the VAT requirement.
    by luke5441
  • To me NFC is superior. It checks all the boxes you mentioned plus quicker / last steps
    by upcoming-sesame
  • It has massive perks, especially in regions where the transaction fee or exchange fee scams run.

    (Basically they have a reasonable price showing and when you pay with a credit card you see your banks charges you a huge amount. It can be as simple as in Mexico $ is used for pesos so if the merchant actually charges you USD that's 20x or so rip off).

    But... This isn't mutually exclusive, why can't I set a price on my smartphone when I pay by contactless?

    The other benefit is that there QR codes are bank transfers. Which have substantially less recourse and less rights for the consumer. Probably doesn't matter for a $10 sandwich but still significant.

    by rustyhancock
  • I need to use this thread to mention the Polish payment system Blik. It is one of the most convenient payment systems out there - you generate an ephemeral 6-digit code in your banking app, copy it to the vendor, confirm, done. Works P2P with phone numbers, too.

    Interestingly, it would be the perfect system for payments using AI agents - the agent tries to pay, asks user to provide 6-digit code, submits payment request. User confirms via banking app. Done.

    by iagooar