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Comment by zb3 | Hacker News Reader

Ah, so this EU wallet is only usable after US companies bless my device? Outstanding move!

This is not a wallet (the name is a bit confusing). Wero (like iDEAL, which it is partly based on), is an online payment system directly backed by your bank account. This is an app that uses the Wero system for doing P2P payments (like Tikkie in The Netherlands).

Most likely, Wero (like iDEAL) will also support alternative apps for P2P payments.

Also, Wero will support in-store payments in the future, making Google Pay/Apple Pay unnecessary [1] unnecessary, which is a big win.

[1] Strictly spoken it's unnecessary now as well, but then each bank needs to implement its own NFC app and most simply opt foor Google/Apple Pay.

I think most/many banks had their own nfc tap-to-pay solution before Google/Apple Pay came along. Any idea why the banks chose to give that up?

Because it cost money to develop and Google/Apple Pay works really, really well everywhere on the planet.

But they already had their own solutions that worked just fine. I can't see how switching to integrate a new system instead would save on dev costs. There surely must be some other reason?

On Smartcards yes, maybe Android, but certainly not on iPhones. On iOS, it's only been possible to implement alternatives to Apple Pay since 17.4 (2024), and only in Europe (EEA).

Ah, I didn't realize the landscape was different on the Apple side of things.

I think this is more about fees than sovereignty.

It can be both, the plumbing is straight forward, simply a matter of will to implement. UPI in India, Pix in Brazil, FedNow in the US, etc. Trimmings are things like paying via QR code and alias support (phone, email IDs). Pix had native alias support, Wero is alias support on top of SEPA Instant payment rails (with a ~ten second settlement SLA).

This gets you to utility cost recovery fee structures and sovereignty over your payment infra, versus other countries controlling your value transfer capabilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_payment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/retail/instant_payments/html/...

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