Very European approach: the winner is chosen by law. Is Wero really a success? According to this article, in 2024 it processed over €7.5 billion.

Polish BLIK, which is not even mentioned in the article and which has joined the EuroPA Alliance, processed €83 billion in 2024, with a 30% y/y increase in H1 2025. I understand that BLIK is much older, but it invested significant effort and money in marketing and promotions while delivering a good user experience. BLIK is now trying to expand to Romania and Slovakia, yet Wero is getting all the hype on Hacker News. Maybe this is a case of East, South, and West Europe being treated differently. Is the only “European” solution one that comes from Western Europe?

Yeah that's pretty much the only reason people use Wero: transferring money faster than a snail between people. This was filled by the likes of Lydia before, but their shenanigans trying to become a bank pushed people to Wero (which is indeed a rename of something else I don't remember, but I used for less than a year).

The real deal is the card payment networks that your plastic thing can use at a merchant's point of sale. All the rest is moot as we already have SEPA for e.g. online payments (it does have its issue for sure, but it's something).