PIX from Brazil is even better, to be honest. But this is a big improvement over online CC payment.

I lived in the NL and Brazil, so I can compare the two, and while iDEAL is pretty good, PIX is easier to understand, explain, and deal with.

PIX has more variants, you can use it for recurrent payment, split payments, financing, cashout and almost all things a CC can do nowadays.

I would say Tikkie is almost as good and easy to use as PIX usecase wise but has less adoption and variants, also it belongs to ABN which is completely different from PIX approach.

> iDeal system, which in my opinion is the gold standard of how internet payment should work

Is it? I see it more as an underwhelming fix for SEPA Direct Debit's inability to verify payment data synchronously.

* iDeal doesn't support basic features like pre-authorization. I'm not even sure if it supports setting up a payment agreement without triggering an immediate payment at all (pretty sure it didn't, when we integrated it a couple of years ago).

* It hands over the customer's IBAN, which isn't really that much safer than a credit card number, since any merchant can trigger a SEPA Direct Debit using it. While you can trigger a chargeback, that requires you to actively monitor for fraudulent transactions, which a decent system wouldn't allow in the first place.

* iDeal recurring payments are SEPA Direct Debit, with all their downsides, like taking days to confirm and a payment that fails due to insufficient funds in the customer's bank account resulting in a significant fee the merchant has to pay (and will probably pass on to the customer).

And Wero has one of the worst, least informative websites I have ever seen. So it's really hard to figure out how it works, and what it supports.

Yesterday I was renewing my vehicle registration through my US states website. They offered a range of payment options using embedded options on the site. The direct bank account option had the lowest fee but when I tried it I was immediately scared of the security. They used a 3rd party bank account transfer provider that asked me what bank I used and looked like it was going to prompt me for my login info before it errored out and I moved on.

Why can't the US have sane banking standards instead of this mess where you have to agree to a new 3rd party TOS and EULA for every purchase you want to make.

Interestingly in a number of African Countries (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania etc) , we have “Mobile Money”, Payments are instant, via USSD, no internet required, I can even pay online using USSD push.This is a classical example of humans using what they have to build what they need , no fancy internet enabled smart phones required. I can send money anytime instantly to my grandma deep in the village. She can withdraw from or top up her account in the numerous mobile money stalls that are everywhere. You pay school dues, medical bills , groceries via mobile money. I don’t remember the last time I visited a bank, hell I can even get an instant loan by just dailing *165# on my no internet feature phone.

I'm just not sure this directly competes with MC/Visa the way the article suggests.

Didn't other EU countries already have something similar to iDEAL, as opposed to using credit cards? And now we're just consolidating them?

Also, isn't this just about online payments? Who's going to pay for a coffee with either Wero or a credit card? AFAIK most EU consumers use direct debit cards for in-store payments (those countries where cash is no longer popular), be it via Apple Pay / Google Pay or not. Many a card of which by the way is directly or indirectly powered by Visa or Mastercard.

At any rate, I don't see EuroPA or Wero break the 'hegemony' of Visa/MC the way this article claims.

I think any dutchie can vouch that iDeal has been amazing. I would also like to add that Wise has been amazing for american payments. I needed it for Anthropic at the time, and this worked good enough

There is a 3DSecure system for existing Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. After typing your card numbers, the transaction doesn’t immediately go through but you are also redirected to the bank’s system. Banks can ask you to use a hardware token, an app, or any other second factor to approve the transaction.

It’s a shame that this system isn’t ubiquitous for the rest of us not in EU.

> should redirect me to my bank

Eugh. The problem with that is that people don't verify they've actually been sent to their bank. An attacker will set up fake merchant sites, pay for Google ads to get your traffic, then have you log into your bank to pay for things.

The more we normalise this, the quicker people will fall for it.

Instead, the payment should redirect me to my bank, where I authorize the payment through my own bank's security system.

That is really cool. I would like to see that system in the US given that my bank has IP restrictions for my account. I would also like the ability to pre-approve specific vendors for specific amounts within each bank as a native service all banks should support.

Banks and Visa/Mastercard probably love that you fill out your CC details on an online store, and next time you can just 1-click pay. Probably causes a big jump in revenue/profit. That's why they never innovated much.

Of course, it is incorrect, and digital payments everywhere (on a kiosk or online) should be intentional pushes, not pulls.

Wero is super confusing. They're in the business of acquiring different methods (I don't even know if they always buy them outright or if they merge or they are just associated in some way), branding them ALL wero, and announcing that every payment in every channel will be rolled out SOON via wero, without ever offering specifics.

So in The Netherlands wero is the new name of eCommerce payments, but in another country the new name for peer2peer. But no idea when p2p will launch in the Netherlands or when eCommerce will launch elsewhere. And if the existing services will be degraded when they are internationalized or merged.

The redirect to a bank is worrying, isn’t it trivial to fake redirecting to a fake bank ?

What about authentication?

I remember living in Belgium this was the case, and I always had to go and find that stupid physical barcode reader that I then had to hold against the screen, sign in with my debit card, PIN, enter the Euro amount, and then sign the transaction.

Now that I live in the USA, I have my credit card number in Bitwarden, with expiration date and CVC.

When I want to buy something, I let it autofill, and I don't have to verify and / or sign any transactions, bar high price ones (e.g. new $5k TV from Best Buy).

And in terms of security? It's a credit card. I review my statement every month. If I didn't make the purchase I call the fraud department and the charge is removed. Last time I did that they didn't even ask me questions.

I'd take Apple pay over the old(?) EU system.

there's the polish BLIK which is basically the same idea and there are probably a dozen more in other countries; need consolidation in this space tbh

Does this work as a credit card system or for debit only?

Providing credit cards online even by phone for 20 years I have never had any issues, or known anyone who had issues. The few occasions my cards were compromised (all my own fault): a restaurant in Vienna pre Covid when cash was king in Europe, I insisted to use the card and the waiter took it inside lol. Got a 4000k cruise booked a few weeks later. Another time at an ATM in Brazil, I even noticed the suspects around the machines waiting and still went for it. A gas station ATM in NYC. That’s about it. Every time I called the bank and they refunded the money. So what I’m saying is security doesn’t seen to be a big issue in the US when it comes to online transactions with credit cards. Of course this is all subjective from my own experiences, but I’m kind of reckless using cards so I’m probably a good test subject.

In Denmark i currently have to enter my card details but then, i get a popup where i have to enter my government issued ID username and scan a QR code from the related app (or enter from a 2fa token generator)

Its annoying - but it feels quite secure

Most online merchants redirect me to my bank's web page when I enter my Visa credit card number. In theory it should be possible to have a card number that by itself is useless and always requires an external confirmation?

> Instead, the payment should redirect me to my bank, where I authorize the payment through my own bank's security system.

That's basically Paypal and everyone still shits on them.

One thing that surprises me a lot is that in order to use Wero with my ING account, I have to give access to my contacts, which I ultimately am not going to do. I wonder how the European payment system can be so ignorant of their customers' privacy.

In fact a unique payment ID (e.g QR) to "push" payment is even safer. No redirect. That's how payment should be. Not an authorization given to pull from us, but the agency for us to push the amount.

It works very good and user-friendly, but iDeal had a disadvantage: chargebacks aren't possible. Whether Wero has the same issue, I do not know.

I recommend also have a look at how eCommerce is done in Chile, e.g. Transbank (WebPay), FinToc and others. Chile passed some very good FinTech legislation a few years ago.

This is one of the reasons I opt for PayPal in the US when I have the choice. I've been in too many breaches. Direct to bank would be better, but I trust PayPal's security more than a random ecommerce website's security.

I thought it was an EU wide version of the belgian PayConiq

That’s how giro payments work. Same for Klarna.

How does the website know which bank to redirect to?

as it was the case in Baltic states since forever. Payments with CC came much later.

I'm annoyed by redirects that won't work if you set a different default browser or incognito mode as default for new tabs. Total BS.

Card numbers just work.

Also, payment "apps" that pack their own web engine and need 300-500 megs D/L, plus refuse to run on rooted / "unvetted" systems. No fucks given! Go away, give a browser and numbers.

Making a note of this as an obvious technical alliance that should have existed for decades.

> I shouldn't have to fill in any card numbers on the site of the merchant (which is unsafe). Instead, the payment should redirect me to my bank, where I authorize the payment through my own bank's security system.

To be honest with multiple banks in Germany, without Wero, works like that too..

iDeal is terrible for fraud. Consumers have to file a police report.

> Wero is basically an EU-wide version of the Dutch iDeal system, which in my opinion is the gold standard of how internet payment should work.

For some reason, most Dutch people are convinced that the way things work in the Netherlands is the gold standard of how things should work in general, and are very hostile to solutions from other countries even if those solutions are better by any sensible metric. This is especially painful when a less developed country does leaps around NL in some aspect, like:

1. In Poland, you don't need to carry any documents with you because if policeman stops you, he has access the police database anyway. This includes driving license.

2. Even if you really want to show a document, you can do it gasp on your phone screen with the official government app.

3. Albert Heijn, the most popular supermarket chain, started accepting Visa and MasterCard in 2023. Not in 2003, in fucking 2023.

4. The adoption of paczkomaty is pathetic and when you have a delivery the expectation is that you're supposed to sit and wait the entire day at home.

5. iDeal launched 2005. Przelewy24 launched in 2004. They function in exactly the same way.

For the uninitiated: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/poob-has-it-for-you

> > A Frenchman using Wero will be able to transfer money to a Spanish friend on Bizum, with the same simplicity as a domestic payment.

SEPA Instant Payments also solves that.

LOL thank you domain squatters. I can't think of any other reason why startups often always have the most ridiculous names.

Frenchman here, living in Spain. This speaks to me on many levels. Bizum is so integrated in my daily life in Spain, that I wished my french friends had it when we need to transfer money between each other. Looks like we're going in that direction. Phenomenal

Sounds totally fine to me. I guess just like there are many Mastodon instances: mastodon.social, fosstodon, infosec.exchange, mas.to, etc., but one protocol by which they talk to each other.

I can feel Galactus's pain.

I’m 50. All startup news looks like this:

“Payments via Zoosha? K-smog and Batboy launch new startup.”

ahahah!

so true. those names are silly. also, French and Spanish can already send money for free via IBAN / SEPA

One silver lining of the current U.S. regime's behaviour is how it's forcing us to move out of the local minima of over-Americanization that we've been stuck in for too long.

What makes you think EU will not look into it and block us from buying “bad things”?

So now that 8 years have passed since that article was written, do you have any idea how many Canadians have been banned from the US for life because they used marijuana in the past?

> credit card data can be stored in the United States, where it’s an open book to U.S. authorities, who don’t need a warrant to access it if it belongs to non-Americans

> A U.S. border guard could quickly put a Canadian in an impossible position — admit to marijuana use and be banned for that, or deny it and be banned for lying

The mechanism in the article is border agents analyzing your credit card purchases to see if you've bought legal weed. Has this become a common procedure? I've passed the border 50+ times in the last few years, I haven't yet had it happen to me. I've never had them bring up cannabis once, they've always seemed much more concerned about when I was leaving.

I think when it comes to something as important as border operations, it doesn't really add much to the conversation to share fear-mongering pieces from 8 years ago.

what until you understand what is next, cdbc and restricted digital money. Enjoy it.

Like American DUIs?

And when anything goes wrong, that's a ruh-ro.

> Euro is pronounced "you-ro"

This in not true for everywhere that uses the Euro, unsurprisingly because that encompasses a large linguistic area. I know for a fact France doesn't pronounce it that way.

There's supposedly also an Italian pun based on "vero" in there.

I've heard pretty much every European English-as-a-second-language speaker pronounced the W differently, though, and pronunciation of the E isn't even consistent within native English populations. I can't wait for the "vee-ro? oh, you mean whay-ro" discussions between tourists and stores.

Unless you're in Germany, when it's more like "oy-ro"... and Wero would be pronounced "ve-ro"... I don't think there's a German pun hiding here!

Never realized this, mind blown :-)

Hmm Euro is actually pronounced roughly like yeuroh (like voyeur); not you-roh, and by the normal heuristics of English at least Wero would likely be pronounced more like weir-oh than wee-ro.

I guess it doesn't have to be perfect to make a funny name though.

When I give someone money I don't feel like I'm sharing it at all. Sounds like it goes from a "my-oh" to a "your-oh" and is aptly named from the jump.

Online and in-store payments will follow in 2027, as per the article

“balkanized” is offensive term

We already have instant SEPA payments and most countries already have a version of this running, I think the idea is that this unifies it across europe. I can send money to any friend in 20 seconds with Bizum in Spain and a lot of merchants also accept Bizum.

We already have SEPA payments in the EU. The path has been paved.

UK Open Banking is a counter example to this argument. It’s been a huge success. Transfers between accounts are seamless, and I never need to authorize Plaid to maintain a permanent session in a headless Chromium instance reading my bank account. The APIs are well-defined, universally supported, and include authorization scopes for viewing balance, authorizing transfers, etc.

That said, I don’t do many p2p payments in the UK (mostly because I’m an adult now, not splitting every bill like I was in college). And I wouldn’t like to add every one of my friends to my banking transfer history. The UK is missing something like Venmo with wide adoption. I assume the kids these days mostly use features like Apple Cash or Monzo transfers.

> Given EuroPA has done a token amount of transactions to date, I’m not sure anyone should hold their breaths.

The Spanish equivalent (Bizum) is merging into Wero is not a token use case, it's absolutely massive here. The absolute standard for peer-to-peer payments, more than 30 million users (>65% of the population), and they already launched contactless terminals for in-person commercial payments this month (https://euroweeklynews.com/2026/04/03/bizum-goes-contactless...).

Wero is not French, but it has replaced France's Paylib. It's pretty awesome and seems to quickly have replaced all other apps (Lydia, PayPal) for small payments in my friend and family circles. I'm excited to see it expand to PoS payments.

iDeal is an enormous success in the Netherlands so if banks implement it as well in other countries then it will definitely be competitive with credit cards for online payments

Ehm. Wero is partially based on the Dutch iDEAL system, which has been hugely successful.

Pretty much all purchases from Dutch webshops are paid through iDEAL as well as many P2P payments. It's also supported by international payment services (iirc Stripe and Shopify).

If they manage to replicate it in other European countries, Werk will be huge. Moreover, it's supported by many banks.

Wero – Digital payment wallet, made in Europe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038965 - February 2026 (132 comments)

Europe's Banks Launch Wero Payments to Dislodge Visa, Mastercard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41666833 - September 2024 (88 comments)

Unofficial Wero Adoption Tracker - https://www.werotracker.eu/

I wish Wero was a real alternative but it seem to be a thin wrapper around Bank APIs and SEPA instant transactions. It has pretty much non of the functionality that PayPal or other services give. It just makes it easier to send money with a phone number instead of an IBAN. My bank doesn't even support it.

What's the benefit of this over contactless payments?

... for now

This is already an issue for tourists in many countries that have their own payment system (e.g. Brazil, India, Singapore, Thailand). In some of them you have companies that came up with products for tourists that allow them to pay but they usually come with fees. From what I know the majority of tourists in these countries just travel with cash.

Those merchants will move to supporting more networks.

It's the same situation as Diners or Amex, they're supported wherever the merchant felt it made sense to go the extra mile. Touristic places typically pay attention to that.

A Wero payment is executed as a SEPA transfer. As an online store you don't want to ask customers to manually input a payment reference into a SEPA transfer. It's all about ease of use (and safety).

No, it's already 130M (out of the ~450M in the EU). Wero's predecessor (iDeal, Bizum, Paylib, Giropay) systems are already widely adapted in their countries of origin and will be fully compatible with it, and Wero itself has had a bit of time to pick up new users on its own by now.

The use is very high (daily) in my social circles these days. No more IBAN sharing. Non tech are on it. YMMV

It was weird to see them bragging about €6MM volume in the first year.

There is a huge first movers advantage on infrastructure.

Additionally until recently most political parties and people in the EU didn't see this as national security related infrastructure. That's why it was allowed to be privatized and handled by external companies. There is a lot more critical digital infrastructure that is being moved away from. Think Microsoft office suite, operating systems, cloud systems and more.

Bank deals, especially in Europe where debit cards is more popular than credit the issuing banks preferred deals largely dictate what network you'll be on.

Its simple: they have deals with all the big banks who issue the popular cards with all of the rewards, so those are the cards people get.

geopolitics, dollar, and then network effect. in that order.

European tech is often atrocious. Every single digital government program in France has been hacked, every social security number is out there, physical addresses tied to crypto wallets, etc.

It's very easy to understand: Paying by credit or debit card is incredibly easy and convenient for customers, and transactions have been instant for a long time, thanks to great technical infrastructure. While bank transfers still take days in some cases.

Most importantly: These cards give customers fraud protection, which is in many cases essential when making online purchases or when traveling. Which leads to more sales for sellers as well, when that worry is removed from the shoulders of customers.

Amex is not very popular in Europe. Discover... I am not sure, not that much.

Visa and MasterCard are everywhere though

> installments, card on file and other typical services

These are typically cherished by the issuers and not really wanted/needed by the customer. Card installments in particular are the bane of our society IMHO and straight loans replace them properly.

Many banks in EU already had loan systems integrated to deal with oversized purchases and extraordinary months, so getting it out of the network doesn't remove the service to the customer in most cases.

We're kinda seeing this playing out with alternative payment systems in Asia for instance: they provide way less options, yet get very popular.because people just don't miss the extra stuff.

You must be very poor at reading French because the article says the exact opposite, and that Spain, Portugal, Italy and Andorra served as test subjects since they already have this system called EuroPA.

If they really thought this was valueless skimming, why wouldn’t they just refuse to take these cards?

Thank you Trump - I guess?! It's great for Europe to wake up and for pointing out we need to decouple from the US and become more tech independent. It's bad enough that the whole world is financing the debt of the USA and every person therein. I hope, that in the long run, our democratic values and freedom will become more and more attractive. Especially when all other players become autocratic regimes. That is, if we realize this freedom is not a given and we are willing to put in the work.

When we need that, we can use Apple/Android pay in many many places or just spin up a temporary visa/mastercard with platforms like Revolut.

Even if Visa/MC keep the fee on foreign spending, losing domestic spending will be a massive financial loss for them (and big gain for EU markets).

Satispay is no longer really used anymore.

It was only welcomed by merchants in the 0-fee era, now no merchant cares anymore as Satispay is no longer free of charge and pulled the rug.

And to send payments across friends there's instant bank wires (often free of charge), and even when it's not instant it is executed in few hours-one working day max which isn't a big issue when you're transferring money across friends.

I don't see a way it wouldn't be offered in addition to. Some EU countries (e.g. Denmark) already do something similar where we a national debit card called "DanKort" (mashup of "Danmark" and "Kort" which translates to "Denmark" and "Card"). It typically also has a VISA part to it for usage abroad.

All stores accept this as well as VISA/Mastercard since they want to maximize who they can get money for, so it's already a common place practice for payment terminals to do this. Tourism alone is enough of a reason you would accept VISA/Mastercard still.

> What does this mean for travel if Visa is not “everywhere you want to be”?

You'll live life as if you had AMEX instead.

It means that businesses who accept cards will have a great advantage against businesses who think they are smart by making life difficult for customers.

> Apple does not provide any card emulation NFC access to the Apple Watch, for example, and only limited access to iPhones

It would be nice if we weren't also locked into American tech but that's a whole other ballgame.

The idea is that merchants will ditch the card-pos in the long run. You scan a QR-code or send money through some app. Satispay does that in Italy and got massive rollout from stores because fees were pretty low also for smaller transfers, so no more "sorry, at least 5 euros to pay with card"

> But does this act like a debit account?

Yeah, it's a debit account. I'm in Spain and use Bizum frequently. It's just a "pay from your bank account" system.

You mostly type in your phone number, get a notification (or text, depends on the bank) and open up your banking app and approve the transaction.

You can send money person to person as well.

Many European countries have a similar system. Wero is "just" stitching the national systems together into a EU wide one.

Credit cards with rewards and points are pretty rare in Europe, and if they do exist, pale in comparison to what you can get in the US/Canada. It depends on how you look at it, but it's kinda good. The EU caps credit card transaction fees at 0.3% and debit transactions at 0.2% iirc, versus in the US/Canada where they are frequently 2-3%. In theory this cost is just passed onto the consumer, so paying an extra 2-3% to get 2-3% back in points or whatever.

> Also I like credit cards for the rewards, cash back or especially travel points. But also things like extended warranty coverage and other perks.

Much of this is funded by inflated interchange fees paid by merchants (and thus inflating the cost of goods for everyone). Ideally you would just pay for the added value you see (fraud protection, charge disputes, supplemental insurance) rather than those costs being externalized to other buyers.

This is where American and European mindsets differ vastly.

We spend what we have. Our spending is directly reflected in one’s balance. We’re insensitive to rewards for spending money.

Wero uses your existing debit account, it's not a separate account.

Debit cards have scheme fees and interchange rates just like credit cards. Interchange rates for credit and debit cards in the EU are actually very comparable and both very low, which is very different from many other parts of the world (e.g. in the US, debit interchange is effectively a flat fee per transaction).

Visa and Mastercard make money on scheme fees paid to them by both issuers and acquirers (i.e. indirectly merchants), not interchange.

There's an indirect impact of lower interchange rates, as issuers will usually not be willing to pay more than 100% of what they're earning in interchange in scheme fees. Acquirers have no such implicit limit, though.

They make buttloads. Debit cards still require a cut for VISA/MasterCard.

> So this is basically the EU version of Zelle?

Yes, but more importantly, it's essentially the EU version of Alipay (which can be used for merchant payments as well as P2P transactions).

P2P payments, specifically SEPA Instant bank transfers, have already been instant and free for several years now in the EU, so there's no need for a Zelle alternative (other than maybe for contact discovery without IBAN).

And speaking of Alipay: This is the actual global alternative to Visa and Mastercard that almost nobody in the west is talking about or even aware of. While it used to be mainly used by either inbound or outbound tourists in/from China, it now spans many countries and issuing and merchant banks all over the world, including many in Europe. Wero is many years behind in that regard.

Yes Wero and Zelle are similar: real-time payment systems, where money is sent directly from bank account to bank account, and recipients are looked up with a convenient ID (a phone number, or an email).

It's a an all-in-one kind of system where you have p2p payments and traditional online payments (like what you would do when making payment for a product on some e-commerce shop).

Plus some additional features like payments through QR.

Who cares at this point. Nothing has ever managed to unite Europeans as effectively as the orange man’s unrelenting torrent of temper tantrums over the past year and a half.

Americans, we know some of you aren’t crazy. Can’t wait for the grown-ups to be in charge again, but in the mean time we’ll be moving on.

America: You need to be more self sufficient and not lean on us so much!

Europe: <launches European payment initiative>

America: NOT LIKE THAT!!!

I'm pretty sure European governments know that and are prepared to deal with the temper tantrum.

I wouldn't be so sure, at least not this administration. Fragmented monetary systems provide more opportunities for creative accountants and that's something the people running everything in the US seem to benefit from.

This action is a response to the tariff regime imposed by the US. The current administration decided that it was going to use its role as the leader of the global hegemon to threaten and coerce other countries, and actions like this are a result. The American government can threaten them all they want, problem is that they've been threatening everyone since Day 1.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43284950 - March 2025

> “How can I decouple from the US as fast as possible?” is what this leads to.

> Diplomacy is the art of saying “good dog” until you make it to the rock. The US will apply pressure for short term gain against allies while they move away long term.

That's the thing, European banks provide Wero, or a system that integrates with Wero. Or Swish, but integration between the two is inevitable in the future.

This whole "new" ecosystem is just gluing together existing national digital payment solutions so it can be used internationally.

It's already on my bank app since a couple of week, but I haven't tried it yet.

Digital euro has plans to be "cash-like" and have "private, offline payments", Wero is not aiming in this direction

UPI would be even better if it were easier for tourists to onboard and use it while traveling in India. The general mindset seems to be that there's enough domestic tourism that making things easy for foreigners isn't that important. I think that really hurts the country's economy.

Yes, every user just gets a handle with no personal or bank info revealed and off you go. User keys in a UPI ID in any merchant site/app, get a push notification for approval in mobile app. Can associate multiple bank accounts to a UPI ID underneath. Approval will ask which account to debit from too. Can't get simpler than this.

The merchant typically uses stripe or adyen or whatever (mollie has a cute name!), a payment service provider or PSP.

The PSP looks at what methods the merchant wants to accept, which methods the user could potentially be using (based on e.g. country by geo IP or some delivery location) and show the relevant icons.

EU users will see schemes like wero or Przelewy24, Japanese customers will see 'konbini' among the icons, and US users may only see credit cards, Apple Pay and Affirm. There are TONS of payment services. Stripe lists 123 of them.

The merchant will want to exclude methods that have high costs (for themselves), maybe they also care about their customers not getting into debt (so no buy-now-pay-later or credit), and some payment methods have higher rates of disputes/chargebacks (e.g. Amex).

In general, most merchants will want to offer as many methods as possible to prevent consumers who have a preference (this week) for using account A over account B from bouncing.

Yes at the pay page there's a 'pay by X' list of options, you choose it.

You then typically have two choices: scan QR with your phone or login to your bank.

I normally open my bank app on my phone which signs in via my face (iPhone), I then press the scan button (first screen), point at my phone at the screen to read the QR code, the transaction pops up on my phone, I press confirm and again it signs via my face. Then you're done.

If you were shopping on the phone it's even simpler of course as the pay button opens up the transaction in your bank app right away, but typically I shop on my laptop after research.

I've had this for almost 20 years by the way in the Netherlands, but now it's pivoted to the EU standard.

Go to store, select "pay by Wero". Get redirected to payment screen where I select my bank. My bank just shows a QR code that I scan with my bank app, authenticate the usual way, redirect back to store, job done.

A "Pay with PIX" button is just a QR code. You reach the payment page, the merchant website generates a QR code, you open up your bank app, scan the QR code, confirm the merchant and the purchase, the merchant website runs a spinner for like 10 seconds while it confirms it in the background, and then you get a confirmation of your purchase with an order number.

In Portugal there's often a "MB Way" payment option - which AFAICT is the PT version of these other systems.

With a code. https://www.blik.com/en/first-steps-with-blik

On paper, in practice it's delisted (At least in EU) from most exchanges like Kraken which makes it an extra hassle to get.

Can't be a missed opportunity if it never took off.

People know what they like/dislike, and crypto payments didn't cut it for whatever reasons. UX, cost, and waiting for blockchain confirmations come to mind.

Also what problems did it solve that we actually have? Without that, there's no incentive for change.

Cryptocurrency didn't actually solve the problems we have, while introducing problems we didn't need to solve, because almost all of them copied Bitcoin. The only problems it solved well was for grifter politicians and criminals skirting financial regulations.

Note this transfer mechanism requires trust in your banking provider, is not pseudo-anonymous, is not decentralised, uses the banking system we already have and doesn't require a whole new 'currency' in order to transfer money.

Interac should join this scheme outright or at least become interoperable with it. I'd love to be able to pay for everything on my trips to Europe without using US credit card networks.

They are generally country specific. But the underlying systems are made for interoperability. You might have an app with a different name in your country

Similar to PayU.

https://czech.payu.com/en/

Adblockers solve this.

To be fair, crypto is anti-consumer.