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In the UK and Europe, didn't governments essentially force banks into the modern age in terms of electronic payments that your contactless and contact cards use
by dv_dt 10y ago
In the UK and Europe, didn't governments essentially force banks into the modern age in terms of electronic payments that your contactless and contact cards use?
By comparison banks in the US use the debit card & ACH system which has many issues compared to credit cards and European payment systems.
- lobster_johnson 10y agoCan't speak for all of Europe, but in Norway, the banks did it of their own accord. They got their heads together in the early 1990s and founded a private company, co-owned by all the banks, that has been stewarding the technology used for inter-bank transfers and card payments. They've been quite good at this — Norway has had chip and pin since the early 2000s, and contactless payments (using NFC in ordinary cards, not phones) have existed for a few years now. Money transfers are also completely effortless; all you need is the other person's bank account number. For consumers, the main hurdle remaining is the speed of transfers between banks. They only perform transfers in bulk twice a day (and for years they only did it once a day).