More EU news: the Wero is coming. It will replace Ideal, a digital paying method. Soon Europeans don’t need an American creditcard anymore. No need for Paypal too, for Wero allows small payments and subscriptions.
Belgium has it already, NL will have it end of this year, more countries follow.
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However, it is regrettable that Wero is only available to people using Android.
It has no web access.
Paypal has a web access.
As having a smartphone isn’t mandatory (yet?), all services should be available without smartphones, or with alternative smartphones.
For me: No web access = no bank.
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In school, that’s a failing grade. But things like this get pushed through again and again.
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This is an entirely new service in Europe and it has the potential to free us from our dependency on US finance.
Paypal is already a no-go for me and for many as this is a tool from Peter Thiel who sits on Trump’s lap. His Palantir is conquering Europe and is now one of the most valuable companies of the US.
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I know many don’t spend time on it but it is useful to read privacy conditions. Paypal is convenient like all US tech, but it is a data grabber.
I always thought Sailfish fans valued privacy…
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Yes, it offers good perspectives to be imagined. But not sufficient yet.
Free us from our dependency on US finance: yes/perhaps (I have no knowledge in that matter)
Free us from our dependency on US: No, because one needs Android or Ios to use it.
But we’ll perhaps have a native app for it, who knows?
edit: In the mean time we have an app: Is there at least one good reason for Wero not to make a simple website to manage the account?
Wero is hopefully safer and respecting privacy better then Paypal.
However it is still interresting to read Wero’s app report on exodus:
-Advertising tracker
-Fine geolocation access
-Bluetooth advertizing (for the recall, every bluetooth chip is unique, hence its reported presence by other devices* (to whom?) is a matter of privacy)
-Camera, audio, storage access…
Not all are problematic but are these permissions really all needed to use the app?
- = Where you were, when, in presence of who (other smartphones with BT chips)
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Technically, if you wanted something more european there was “Skrill” already, which is based in ireland and which i’m using happily from years
20 years ago it was supported by almost every shop, then for some (unknown to me) reason they started replacing it with paypal, but it’s still working nicely (better if you have their prepaid card, considering you can use it everywhere)
Unfortunately it requires an app too from like two years (althought you can manage your account with a website too), and from like a year they also require microg and safetynet, but it works on sailfish and that’s all that matters
I know it’s technically more of the same with paypal, but at least it’s in europe
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I agree: Wero must be operational from a browser under all circumstances to fulfill the goal of independence from US and privacy requirements.
Sounds promising, but the tieness to US duopoly renders this service useless somehow.
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Wero is a nightmare just like PayPal.
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For me Wero is a missed opportunity, and in terms of freedom, a total failure.
Or another example of EU ability to turn gold into crap.
Their app
- has trackers, needs access to noneoftheirbusiness data (as others already mentioned ).
- is closed - unless the definition of “open” is iOS and Android. So you (or me) stupid out there, with a computer and a dumb phone, can’t use own money with the EU payment solution !
- is only offered IF your bank opts in (mine doesn’t so far).
I don’t feel any relief knowning that my data is stolen by EU’s data thiefs instead of US’. The added value from swapping evils is nil.
As far as I am concerned, they can stick it up their bottoms, go all on a ship and sink. Won’t be noticed. For one, I won’t mourn them.
…not to mention its name, “Wero” - to my ears sounds stupidly unappealing (admittedly subjective).
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Paypal is awful and I understand that Wero gets people’s hope up, but I can’t help to be the cynic after seeing their web site. They serve a handful of trackers there, along with claims of fulfilling the highest EU privacy standards. I know that crap is “everywhere”, but this is the “whatever we get away with” attitude, not the “we care about your privacy” mindset.
The app carries two trackers, one for “mobile retargeting” and one open-source analytics platform (which can be benign or evil, depending on settings and what data sharing goes on behind the scenes).
What permissions does a payment app need? Taler requests 12 of them, Wero 22. Among those 10 that only Wero needs are some sensitive ones, probably normal for your average Android data-grabber but it certainly doesn’t set them apart from the bad actors.
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Maybe supposed to hint at “true” in romance languages, spelt in a way that doesn’t look like a cut-off Verordnung in German. (Who knows.)
As it’s an EU payment service steadily pushed down the EU citizen’s throats ( to access their own hard earned money!) , the EU should :
- forbid any tracker or data collection of any kind in the official application
- mandate a web access for people not using smartphones
- ideally have an open source implementation with reproducible builds, or at least a public API for platforms not supported directly by the official app.
This should be the basic policy for about every public /govt service and assimilated/constrained commercial ones (ex: payments are offered by commercial banks, but I can’t avoid banks as I can’t legally be handed my wage in cash ).
I could be wrong, but never saw any EU directive enforcing anything this.
Instead, after years of intensive work, we got USB C everywhere (which is good btw, but so little )
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I vote for a different spelling of WeRot 
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According to Exodus Privacy Wero has two trackers: Adjust analytics and Matomo (Piwik). That’s all. There are 22 permissions.You know that not all permissions are active. Location is sometimes necessary when you want to send money to your peers nearby. If you don’t want that you can switch location off. Camera and bluetooth idem dito. I never have these on unless necessary.
This Wero is still in early stage so we don’t yet know how it develops. It’s important to me that it is backed and guaranteed by banks and that it will be implemented to many more countries.
Android app: how many use Aurora store? How many have a Google account (not me)? How about banking on Sailfish?
I challenge all the cynics here to develop a reliable financial digital service backed by official stable banks and suitable for everyone with in Europe, also for people with Android and iphones.
Remember Flatter for Sailfish? It didn’t work.
Skrill could have been an option if the Irish Central bank had co-operated with other European banks. Apparently it did’t and this made it less successful.
Freedom: only cash is free. Paypal isn’t free at all.
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Huge cookie Banner. 56 Trackers. Not ‘so bad’. But just enough for me to think, wtf. That’s about as bad as paypal. Oh, actually, it’s worse. Paypal has LESS third party cookies on the web page.
And is an app only. No way. So, like, why?
Freedom means not having my options limited to an operating system.
Freedom means being able to chose with which clients I interact with a system.
Freedom means having less friction.
Now, as to Peter Thiel, may he rot in his own special hell, since all of the governments of Europe, and I mean all, are clients, I hardly see that as being an argument.
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Wikipedia:
2022 After 20 banks from Poland, Spain, Germany and Finland had withdrawn from the project in end of 2021, the remaining 13 banks pivoted the project towards a payment solution based on a digital wallet.[8]
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All this privacy nonsense while no matter what payment processor whether EU developed app or not will need to bow down to US KYC laws or no european bank will touch it with a ten foot pole, eu is us colony, crypto is the only way
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The only value crypto has is the “desire” of all involved to get others involved so it increases in value.
Leaving the tech it runs on aside (which many can be said about blockchains also) its just a bubble of people that don’t seem to understand money. No utility to it.
Of course the same can be said about fiat currencies but there is a difference in a currency “representing” the economy that uses it and the trust people have to that.