No they are not? You might be thinking of cheque-style payments (recipient pulls, with proof of the sender's authorisation) versus giro-style payments (sender pushes, with their own authorisation). The latter are obviously much more secure.
Do you pay your groceries with SEPA instant transfers?
Merchants can't just slap a QR code with their banking details on their website or cash registers. Wero offers a convenient layer on top of SEPA transfers, and you can argue EPC QR codes are already enough (though most people would disagree).
Additionally, Wero provides a full payment solution that's integrated with many third party processors, and is basically an evolution of Payconiq and iDEAL. Sure, it does use SEPA rails, but there's a lot more to it. And that's the part that will need to interoperate with more than a dozen mobile wallets in Europe, inside and outside the Eurozone.
That's why it's built on SEPA instant that is written into EU law, requiring 10 second transfer times, and the banks have incentives to support these things (they often own it, but also because it creates lock-in effects of focusing business in one bank).
Wero has the right momentum, it'll get there. But federating mobile wallets in the Eurozone and eventually Europe at large is no small feat.