alt Hacker NewsDecathlon Germany adds Wero payment option to decathlon.de website
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I recently bought something from fahrrad.de and was surprised to see Wero as an payment option. I don't know what I expected, but scanning the QR code and acknowledging the payment in my banking app worked without any issues. The whole process had a very "snappy" feeling without waiting for any of the usual spinners and redirects. So... thumbs up, I guess?
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.
Decathlon is pretty neat and technologically advanced actually, so not surprising news for them to adopt Wero.
In eastern European stores they use RFID for every product, so you just throw stuff in a bin without scanning and can self check faster than usual self scan.
Well I have not tried throwing in a bike in a bin or a dumbbell, but I presume it works for 99% of stuff.
Curious what they pay for RFID, last I checked it is about 5-6 cents per item for small quantities.
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.
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.
It sucks that decathlon basically left Canada after a short trial run. I think it really came down to crappy marketing overall.
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.
Why is this news? In the Netherlands the ideal system is already replaced by Wero ? What am I missing.
> competition in digital payments
What competition? Here in the Netherlands, iDeal (which is already renamed to Wero) has almost no competition. Perhaps PayPal a few percent
Credit card companies and services like PayPal extract large amount of wealth, mostly to provide a service (instant payment) for which they are no longer technically necessary.
New systems like Wero (or similar ones already widely established in India or Brazil) are based on instant bank transfers rather than a credit card company that acts as a middle man.
If European retailers manage to link Wero payments to loyalty schemes, then everyone will benefit and this could eventually become something. Still, no thread to legacy credit card rails (Mastercard, Visa) for many years. The industry doesn’t expect hockey stick growth AFAIK
I've also recently seen a Wero option somewhere in Germany. Probably was the transport authority in Berlin, or an air company, I can't quite remember. Haven't seen it in France yet, though.
After the pandemic, Germany truly picked up cashless payments. But still a long way to go, especially to prevent tax evasion
I'd like the EU to enforce a payment-system agnostic checkout for webshops, which gives me the same payment options everywhere and which also adds a layer of privacy.
Related:
Lidl Introduces the European Payment Method Wero in Germany
I always use Paypal because they have buyers protection, and this has already saved me countless of times.
Would like to see if this is also offered in the Wero ecosystem?
In Spain we can pay using Bizum on many websites, including Amazon.
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.
Presse release: https://einblicke.decathlon.de/presse/pressekit/digitale-inn...
I get that this is a good thing and long overdue - but the excitement here just underscores for me how expectations in Europe for Europe doing anything truly cutting edge are low.
Wero is such a valuable asset for Europe and couldn't have come at a better time.
It's built on the excellent SEPA system, which standardized bank transfers and "Lastschrift" in Europe. SEPA itself got a huge upgrade last year with mandatory instant transfers that cannot cost more than standard transfers between European checking accounts.
Both of those allowed Wero to happen as a final abstract top layer, meaning: the UX of sending money to an email address with the security and convenience of bank transfers. And everything is built collaboratively on top of European banking infrastructure.
No account necessary and no private american conglomerates can delete that account.
And before some says: "Well, now the government controls everything!": They already did, since... Ever. Now its one less entity with that access and one that can be (hopefully) controlled and changed by a majority.