this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026
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Berliners will soon have to pay fees and other payments to the administration via the payment system Wero. This was decided by the digital committee of the House of Representatives, according to a report by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB).

Wero -- a combination of We and Euro -- is a digital payment service that allows money to be transferred by providing a mobile phone number or an email address. It is intended to be positioned against US payment services such as Paypal.

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[โ€“] pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 82 points 1 week ago (3 children)

with only the AfD abstaining.

fucking dumb fascists

[โ€“] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 week ago

"Fucking dumb" and "fascists" seem redundant.

[โ€“] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[โ€“] ReluctantlyZen@ani.social 11 points 1 week ago

Both. Weaponised stupidity

[โ€“] toffi@piefed.social 14 points 1 week ago

Ah yes the party of nationalism wants to keep us bound to foreign payment providers. I wonder why.

[โ€“] ReluctantlyZen@ani.social 39 points 1 week ago (2 children)

From what I know, Wero is based on the standard Dutch payment service iDeal. iDeal becoming more international is something I'm very happy with as it works great.

[โ€“] rollin@piefed.social 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

is it pretty much a way to do bank transfers without having to give away your IBAN? I don't think IBANs need to be kept secret but they're a bit unwieldy to say the least - and transfers are not always instant.

[โ€“] ReluctantlyZen@ani.social 3 points 1 week ago

More or less, yeah.

[โ€“] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And with IBAN there are sometimes unknown fees so the amount that your (especially from a different country) transferee receives is less than what you pay, and you only know after 1-3 business days.

[โ€“] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago

That's not a thing anymore for amounts under 10k or something. Unless your bank is shit and doesn't automatically use sepa instant, which is free and instant.

[โ€“] python@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

If anyone could come up with a good money transfer service, it's definitely the Dutch. Love their whole Tikkie thing tbh

[โ€“] Mihies@programming.dev 12 points 1 week ago (4 children)

But how many online and offline shops accept it? If it wants to succeed, it has to be at least EU driven.

[โ€“] whaleross@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

From what I've gathered, there is a rushed effort to make this the EU standard payment system as soon as possible. When it is in place it will most likely be integrated by any online vendor that wants to do pan European business.

[โ€“] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is not nor will be EU standard. There are many existing solutions cooperating under the umbrella of European Payment Alliance (EuroPA). This includes Nordic countries, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland and couple more (Austria? Romania?). Wero was pushed by Germany that was late to the game and tried to impose their solution on everyone but looks like they gave up now and last year Wero and EuroPA signed a deal to cooperate. They will work on integrating existing solutions and Wero will be only used in France and Germany (unless something very strange happens and some country abandons their system).

[โ€“] azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (5 children)

I already used it in Belgium though...? "Pushed by Germany" is a bold statement when the technology comes from iDeal/Bancontact which are Dutch and Belgian respectively and France is also a very large economy in the mix. Don't forget about Luxembourg as well. Benelux+FR+DE is hardly an ignorable market. France is already abandoning its existing solution for Wero. That's always been the plan.

Do you care to source your claims? My understanding both the EuroPA and EPI are a private agreement between banks, but only the latter has received explicit backing from the European Commission. The EuroPA does not seem nearly as ambitious and only seeks to streamline existing national SEPA-based online payments (unclear to me what that means exactly in practice), which is a nice short-term vision for sovereignty but probably not where the EU will want to be 5 or 10 years from now. The big selling point of Wero is that you can be shown a QR code and use it to pay easily and instantly with extremely low fees, regardless of your bank.

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[โ€“] joyful_chasm@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Most sites use a payment provider that links into services local to the userbase and spits back a standardised output. iDeal is already connected to a lot of those. Likely no extra work for individual sites: just some onboarding at the provider.

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[โ€“] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Bancontact/payconiq uses it is the background now, apparently

So all of Benelux and a lot of France and Germany use it for webshops as bancontact/payconiq is integrated into webshop payment platforms using shopify๐Ÿคข and others.

Mollie directly can use and accept Wero and is also an option that many webshops use as a middleman and is fairly web builder-agnostic

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[โ€“] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

My question would be, can it be used without a smart phone? If not, is having a google account or iphone an indirect requirement?

[โ€“] Alchalide@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's being presented as being the same as ideal. We've been using this for many years. You can pay using your banking app but you can also use your bankcard and an "identifier". If you want to pay something online you get a code or qr code presented on the website you buy the product. You put your bankcard into the identifier, enter your pin, enter the code or scan the qr and the identifier pops out a code that you enter on the website and the payment is instantly done. If you just use your baking app without the identifier, you are limited in the amount you can pay and the app will sometimes ask to use your identifier and card. It's really easy and convenient in my opinion.

Edit: we only use our banking app and card. No other accounts needed.

[โ€“] Vinylraupe@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I used my baking app and a gรขteau aux apricots appeared, what should i do next?

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right now afaik wero is part of your regular banking app, so it may be usable just online on your banking website or with custom roms like grapheneos, which a decent amount of banking apps support. there's definitely a lot of reliance on google and apple though.

For me it's working on revolut. It's a bit hidden, but I'm trying to switch there instead of PayPal.

But I don't know a lot of online stores that accept it. Did anyone use it to buy online?

[โ€“] RedGreenBlue@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Relying on Android and IOS. Smert! This can be shut down by American interest at a whim. There is no chip and terminal option, right?

[โ€“] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 week ago

It's a phone number. It can be released as an app on any platform. It doesn't rely on android and ios

[โ€“] madjo@piefed.social 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Itโ€™s for online payments with your bank app.

[โ€“] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is there any bank app that doesn't rely on google play or iphone?

[โ€“] punkibas@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Yes, you can just use it through the bank's webpage on a phone.

[โ€“] Renohren@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

My two bank apps (sociรฉtรฉ gรฉnรฉrale and N26 ) don't. They only needs a locked bootloader, I run them fine within iodรฉ OS.

[โ€“] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It's not relying on either? It's a website that also happens to have app versions

[โ€“] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Why can't we just decouple payment processor and payment system? So that you can have your card from ...your bank or whoever, pay via Wero on a terminal the supermarket has from ...Logitec. Same for the phone, let me use whatever payment app. Sure, would require a standard. But EU has a interest now.

[โ€“] bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

I think they're doing what you want? Where I live we basically have had this system since 2006. I can use my debit card for online banking, online purchases, in store purchases, personal transactions (for example sending money to friends, instant and free), and for public transport. No need for a credit card or something like venmo.

There's a case to be made about privacy and such, especially the public transport part, but it is really convenient.

[โ€“] Luisp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago

Gรผero is a mexican slang for blonde or north American

[โ€“] jjpamsterdam@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago

I strongly suspect that it will become one option amongst others, such as a regular bank transfer, for example.

[โ€“] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Honestly, never used it, but my understanding is that it's become pushed for more heavily in recent years in response to Visa/MasterCard doing shit like refusing payments for LGBTQ things and for NSFW things, under dubious reasons

[โ€“] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 2 points 1 week ago

As an American, I would like to purchase my hentai above-board, not having to do weird maneuvers or piracy to get my perversion fix. MasterVisa makes it difficult for me to uphold the social contract. Hopefully, an alternative like Wero can overcome MasterVisa and allow me to do my part.

[โ€“] Lowleekun@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"Will soon have to" sounds very much like it is not optional. Mandatory shit sucks. Make me want to use it instead of forcing it down my throat pls.

[โ€“] SkavarSharraddas@gehirneimer.de 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

According to the linked source in the German article https://www.rbb24.de/politik/beitrag/2026/01/berlin-verwaltung-wero-paypal-alternative-europa-bezahlung.html "the goal is to be able to pay digitally with Wero for administrative services in Berlin." (translation and emphasis mine)

[โ€“] Lowleekun@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

Thank you. I hoped it was bad wording.

[โ€“] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

GNU-Taler crying in the corner.

[โ€“] Sepia@mander.xyz 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Why? GNU Taler and Wero can co-exist imo, they are both excellent projects. GNU Taler released its first version in Switzerland last year as you may know. I do hope they will be thriving both, and possibly more will come.

[โ€“] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

Is Wero FOSS ?

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