(I don’t know if this community allows such rants or if there are other communities better suited for it. Please let me know!)

So, I wanted to replace PayPal with a service that’s not owned by an American megacorp. Last year, Wero (wero-wallet.eu) launched with much media attention as a self-proclaimed competitor to PayPal owned and operated by European banks. I love the idea!

Now here’s the issue: I can’t use it. My bank (DKB in Germany) isn’t a part of the European Payments Initiative, so I can’t use the service. And so are many other banks across Europe.

I understand that the owning banks want to have a competitive advantage over one another, but what really bothers me is that a system intended to compete with PayPal isn’t even designed to seriously compete. With PayPal, I can just link any bank account from any bank using my IBAN, but Wero doesn’t support this. This is one of the reasons why Giropay (or Kwitt) in Germany didn’t really catch on – it is too complex and too inaccessible for most potential users.

Not only does it actively keep me and many other Europeans from using Wero, it will also never become a global competitor to PayPal (that could generate additional income for the owning banks), because no non-European bank will likely ever be part of the EPI.

I would love to see a European service capable of seriously competing with American megacorps on a global level. But in my opinion, Wero just ain’t one of them.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.netMEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      There is a 5 million Euro support program by the EU right now. Not much and things are moving slowly, but at least there is a small hope that Taler will see some uptake later this year.

    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      I think it’s still a very academic project. It’ll take some time. But I really don’t get why banks leave large parts of their market to third parties. I mean all the transactions which are handled by Stripe, PayPal… or Apple and Google Pay at the supermarket… I think most purchases I do either online or with my bank card, generate some transaction fees which go to some large payment provider. That’s all money banks could earn themselves?! And I suppose they like money, so I really don’t get why they leave that to someone else.