alt Hacker NewsShopping online beyond the national borders is a fraction of all shopping done online, and when it is done, people gravitate to big platforms like Amazon or Steam.
What Wero will do, is allow a German citizen to order stuff in a German shop, and an Italian citizen to order stuff in an Italian shop first and foremost. After that, it will allow them to pay for stuff on Vinted (people already buy second hand clothes across borders this way!) or Steam.
It will also make buying stuff in different European countries easier, but that is only a tiny percentage. The winners here are citizens being able to shop around further, and shops with dedicated national versions of their store to sell stuff easily to citizens in whichever country they decide to port their shop to (in addition to simply serving those who are fine with their shop in English or another language).
If you only know credit cards, you won't see the benefit, but Europe is predominantly a place of debit cards and local payment methods.
The comment I originally replied to and the one I originally wrote concerns cross-border online payments only. As I initially mentioned, Wero could be good or even great for other uses. But almost all European countries already have their own similar systems for instant bank transfers, and have had them for about a decade now.
> It will also make buying stuff in different European countries easier, but that is only a tiny percentage.
Why and how? It's already extremely easy and online shopping is mature and accessible across borders.
> If you only know credit cards, you won't see the benefit, but Europe is predominantly a place of debit cards and local payment methods.
Debit cards have exactly the same advantages as credit cards. Most importantly purchase protection, which bank transfers don't have.