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> The existing giro system is the real Paypal competitor. Most Europeans had access to Paypal-style money transfers before they had email. Not at all, not even

> The existing giro system is the real Paypal competitor. Most Europeans had access to Paypal-style money transfers before they had email. Not at all, not even close! In most cases, that's wrong even today. Want to sell something online? A book you wrote, a game you made? There's no way for people to pay you via giro and automatically receiving the good on the page where the payment process was initiated. Giro is not instant, and almost no bank will offer an API that signals that a specific customer has transferred funds successfully. It always takes hours, and the confirmation process is almost always only semi-automatic for the seller. Visa/MasterCard/PayPal/Twint/Tikkie/Wero have and will provide actual value. Giro was nice 15 years ago, but hasn't kept up. And even for money transfers between two private individuals, giro is the inferior system - mainly because Euro banks fail at UX/UI. I don't know a single bank that offers an "address book" in their online banking app/website. If you want to send someone money, you better remember their IBAN yourself. And because the system comes with a degree of anonymity, you can't even send people money back! Their IBAN is not part of the metadata of an incoming transfer, the only way to send money back is to contact that person and have them send their IBAN.

rcbdev 1y ago
Austria has the state-run EPS system. It's very ubiquitous here, I use it for most online payments.
tnolet 1y ago
ideal will handle that. But it’s only in NL.
- kuschku 1y ago
  ideal is being shut down, and merged with German GiroGo/PayDirekt and Danish Dankort into Wero, which is what this entire subthread is about.
pantalaimon 1y ago
> Giro is not instant, and almost no bank will offer an API that signals that a specific customer has transferred funds successfully. And because of that we have leeches like Sofortüberweisung. They basically proxy the web interface of your bank and you'll give them full access to your account, so they do the transaction for you by scraping your banks web interface (and your transaction history) and report success to the vendor.
- whstl 1y ago
  > Sofortüberweisung A reminder that Sofort is made by Klarna, the company that mandated usage of AI and fired 700 employees because of AI.
- ta12653421 1y ago
  not any more: most of these Payment-Initiation-Services (PISP in EU-speach) do use the public PSD2 apis these days. In the dark beginning days, it was scraped, yes.
bratwurst3000 1y ago
? IBAN transactions are instant and free. All three of my banking apps offer adresse books. why couldnt i sent money back? I see the sender and the IBAN I can even in some cases cancell payments where are you at? me france germany italy and switzerland. Are you from the states or canada? The parent talked about europe.
- thirdsun 1y ago
  > ? IBAN transactions are instant and free. Instant transactions are a very recent development and are only starting to become common because banks are required by law to support them for free come October. Up until rather recently instant SEPA transfers were often either not supported or came with additional fees attached.
  - korhojoa 1y ago
    Based on the replies I've been seeing in this post, I'm starting to think that my banks (or I've somehow lucked out) have been very proactive in providing users with desirable features. Instant transfers have been the default for quite a while, and possible (for a fee) for as long as I can remember. Online payments with instant confirmation have been really easy for 15+ years.
korhojoa 1y ago
I'm trying to think of any bank that I've used that would not have "address book"-like functionality, and I can't think of one. All of them have this, and have had the feature for as long as I've used their online banking. Perhaps the banks you're used to aren't very modern? SEPA transfers are (at least mine have been) max. 1h until the transfer is complete (some limit this to "banking hours"). Instantaneous transfer is common. It seems to me like there is great variety depending on what bank you use. API's are common, and even the same between banks now with PSD2. Tbh, a banking barcode (or EPC QR if you prefer) displayed on the seller's webpage with unique reference + reading it with your phone and making the payment is that internet payment method via giro. The webshop uses PSD2 open banking to get notified of new transactions and knows when it is transferred.
- siva7 1y ago
  That's also not my experience. Giro was a nightmare compared to paypal 15 years ago and the only reason it slightly improved was regulations, not because the german banks cared about the customer experience. Now in 2025 Giro is dead as banks like DKB don't even hand out those cards by default. The system in germany is a big mess despite so many fintechs in germany.
  - kuschku 1y ago
    > Now in 2025 Giro is dead as banks like DKB don't even hand out those cards by default. Mastercard has started to punish banks that support Girocard by default, demanding that banks drop support. This is not an issue with Giro or Girocard, but with the existing payment monopolies.
- pbmonster 1y ago
  > a banking barcode (or EPC QR if you prefer) displayed on the seller's webpage with unique reference + reading it with your phone and making the payment is that internet payment method via giro. The webshop uses PSD2 open banking to get notified of new transactions and knows when it is transferred. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. This is how services like Twint in Switzerland or PayPal in Germany have worked for the last decade+. You're saying this is currently possible, with any arbitrary two German/European banks on either end? Your customer scans the QR code, hits a button, and the QR code is replaced by a download link, and the delay is <20 seconds? Do you have a link for the tech stack to built this?
kuschku 1y ago
SEPA Instant Credit Transfer allows instant sepa transfers, and soon all transactions will be required to be ict if possible. Banks have APIs you can integrate with, which e.g. KDE's money app used to support in the past. The actual underlying transaction system is extremely well designed and reliable, it's just missing the nice APIs that other payment systems have.
ta12653421 1y ago
Not quite exactly: There was a earlier competitor much better than PayPal, called Giro-Pay: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giropay https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giropay It had all the stuff PayPal had at launch, also some of the feature made it into the eventually-died "Paydirekt" (which also died) The main reason could be the high fragmentatin across the EU market. Though, WERO, now we have a new appraoch, this time with support von ECB :-D
tremon 1y ago
Giro was nice 15 years ago What giro system are you talking about here? Do you mean the postal giro system that has existed in Europe since the 1960s and has been used for postorder shopping since before the Internet existed? That system was already obsolete in NL last century when we had the first digital invoicing systems via e-mail (and digital personal banking via dial-up), and we've had direct online payments via iDeal since 2005. Are you saying that some countries are still relying on paper-based payment instructions in 2025? I don't know a single bank that offers an "address book" in their online banking app/website. Conversely, I don't know a single online banking portal that does NOT offer such basic functionality. Santander, ING, and Rabobank all do. And because the system comes with a degree of anonymity What do you mean? Every payment in my bank's transaction history shows the account number on the other end of the transfer.

rcbdev 1y ago

Austria has the state-run EPS system. It's very ubiquitous here, I use it for most online payments.

tnolet 1y ago

ideal will handle that. But it’s only in NL.

kuschku 1y ago
ideal is being shut down, and merged with German GiroGo/PayDirekt and Danish Dankort into Wero, which is what this entire subthread is about.

pantalaimon 1y ago

> Giro is not instant, and almost no bank will offer an API that signals that a specific customer has transferred funds successfully. And because of that we have leeches like Sofortüberweisung. They basically proxy the web interface of your bank and you'll give them full access to your account, so they do the transaction for you by scraping your banks web interface (and your transaction history) and report success to the vendor.

whstl 1y ago
> Sofortüberweisung A reminder that Sofort is made by Klarna, the company that mandated usage of AI and fired 700 employees because of AI.
ta12653421 1y ago
not any more: most of these Payment-Initiation-Services (PISP in EU-speach) do use the public PSD2 apis these days. In the dark beginning days, it was scraped, yes.

bratwurst3000 1y ago

? IBAN transactions are instant and free. All three of my banking apps offer adresse books. why couldnt i sent money back? I see the sender and the IBAN I can even in some cases cancell payments where are you at? me france germany italy and switzerland. Are you from the states or canada? The parent talked about europe.

thirdsun 1y ago
> ? IBAN transactions are instant and free. Instant transactions are a very recent development and are only starting to become common because banks are required by law to support them for free come October. Up until rather recently instant SEPA transfers were often either not supported or came with additional fees attached.
- korhojoa 1y ago
  Based on the replies I've been seeing in this post, I'm starting to think that my banks (or I've somehow lucked out) have been very proactive in providing users with desirable features. Instant transfers have been the default for quite a while, and possible (for a fee) for as long as I can remember. Online payments with instant confirmation have been really easy for 15+ years.

korhojoa 1y ago

I'm trying to think of any bank that I've used that would not have "address book"-like functionality, and I can't think of one. All of them have this, and have had the feature for as long as I've used their online banking. Perhaps the banks you're used to aren't very modern? SEPA transfers are (at least mine have been) max. 1h until the transfer is complete (some limit this to "banking hours"). Instantaneous transfer is common. It seems to me like there is great variety depending on what bank you use. API's are common, and even the same between banks now with PSD2. Tbh, a banking barcode (or EPC QR if you prefer) displayed on the seller's webpage with unique reference + reading it with your phone and making the payment is that internet payment method via giro. The webshop uses PSD2 open banking to get notified of new transactions and knows when it is transferred.

siva7 1y ago
That's also not my experience. Giro was a nightmare compared to paypal 15 years ago and the only reason it slightly improved was regulations, not because the german banks cared about the customer experience. Now in 2025 Giro is dead as banks like DKB don't even hand out those cards by default. The system in germany is a big mess despite so many fintechs in germany.
- kuschku 1y ago
  > Now in 2025 Giro is dead as banks like DKB don't even hand out those cards by default. Mastercard has started to punish banks that support Girocard by default, demanding that banks drop support. This is not an issue with Giro or Girocard, but with the existing payment monopolies.
pbmonster 1y ago
> a banking barcode (or EPC QR if you prefer) displayed on the seller's webpage with unique reference + reading it with your phone and making the payment is that internet payment method via giro. The webshop uses PSD2 open banking to get notified of new transactions and knows when it is transferred. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. This is how services like Twint in Switzerland or PayPal in Germany have worked for the last decade+. You're saying this is currently possible, with any arbitrary two German/European banks on either end? Your customer scans the QR code, hits a button, and the QR code is replaced by a download link, and the delay is <20 seconds? Do you have a link for the tech stack to built this?

kuschku 1y ago

SEPA Instant Credit Transfer allows instant sepa transfers, and soon all transactions will be required to be ict if possible. Banks have APIs you can integrate with, which e.g. KDE's money app used to support in the past. The actual underlying transaction system is extremely well designed and reliable, it's just missing the nice APIs that other payment systems have.

ta12653421 1y ago

Not quite exactly: There was a earlier competitor much better than PayPal, called Giro-Pay: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giropay https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giropay It had all the stuff PayPal had at launch, also some of the feature made it into the eventually-died "Paydirekt" (which also died) The main reason could be the high fragmentatin across the EU market. Though, WERO, now we have a new appraoch, this time with support von ECB :-D

tremon 1y ago

Giro was nice 15 years ago What giro system are you talking about here? Do you mean the postal giro system that has existed in Europe since the 1960s and has been used for postorder shopping since before the Internet existed? That system was already obsolete in NL last century when we had the first digital invoicing systems via e-mail (and digital personal banking via dial-up), and we've had direct online payments via iDeal since 2005. Are you saying that some countries are still relying on paper-based payment instructions in 2025? I don't know a single bank that offers an "address book" in their online banking app/website. Conversely, I don't know a single online banking portal that does NOT offer such basic functionality. Santander, ING, and Rabobank all do. And because the system comes with a degree of anonymity What do you mean? Every payment in my bank's transaction history shows the account number on the other end of the transfer.