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Like always, as the problem is so obvious, the interesting question is why it has not been solved yet ("US neutral global payment alternative for Visa/Mastercar

Like always, as the problem is so obvious, the interesting question is why it has not been solved yet ("US neutral global payment alternative for Visa/Mastercard"). There are three problems - Hometurf competition - Politics - Technical skill But in the case of the EU it is mostly the first. All "local" (read: national) banks have created their own payment standards to compete with Visa/Mastercard. Everyone wants their standard to be adopted, instead of the competitor bank alternatives. Then there is rollout. Banks are very traditional organisations and cannot think startups how to get adoption. They want adoption through regulation "force everyone to use our system." They cannot get natural adoption. If you want adoption, make system open as possible, take a page from Linux playbook. Give open source terminals and libraries to everyone and you will have adoption. As discussed in Hacker News before, there are also reasons why the EU lacks top software development skill, which is currently naturally attracted to the US. Not as an individuals, you still get top EU programmers, but as a geographic. This is due to software engineer not being prestigious job in many EU countries. The step further for this is open ledger, which comes to politics. Even in the EU we are worried that if someone runs this system, the "evil" countries like Hungary will exploit it, suck in all your personal data and sell to Russians. Only if there were credible neutral open digital ledger.

ben_w 2y ago
N26 (Berlin), Revolut (London), and Trade Republic (Berlin) are all fintech startups based in Europe (Europe != EU, as per North America != USA). This story is mainly about the EU, but the UK was a non-trivial part of the EU tech scene before Brexit and Revolut was part of that scene and has offices in Lithuania and got a proper bank license in the EU three years before it got one in the UK. > The step further for this is open ledger, which comes to politics. Even in the EU we are worried that if someone runs this system, the "evil" countries like Hungary will exploit it, suck in all your personal data and sell to Russians. One or two problems there, depending on how you split them: 1) To avoid your data being sold to the Russians, you'll give it away for free? 2) The very fact that bank ledgers are not open, prevents one country — Hungary in your example — from having access to all of them.
benterix 2y ago
> "evil" countries like Hungary Governments, not countries. Hungary is a country like any other, it got a crazy power-hungry leader and just like all authoritarians he is right-leaning and Putin-friendly. But the whole country is not like that, and sooner or later this shit-show will end.
- immibis 2y ago
  They voted for him and they'll vote for more like him. Related: actual Nazism is on the rise in Germany, with the neonazi party recently winning control of two state governments.
  - benterix 2y ago
    > Related: actual Nazism is on the rise in Germany, with the neonazi party recently winning control of two state governments. I actually blame previous governments for this, especially their "invite all possible immigrants, give them free money, and worry about consequences later". It didn't make any sense then and it doesn't now but they pulled it in spite of people knowing the consequences as these are clear in other countries. I strongly believe if they chose a more reasonable strategy, that is being more picky about 1) who is coming in, 2) in what quantities, 3) how to deal with non-integration, 4) regular revisions of immigration policies based on the reality - we wouldn't have the AfD problem now, at least not at this scale. You can clearly see from Putin's actions on Belorussian border with the EU that it is his main strategy for destabilizing Europe, one that works quite well.
    - immibis 2y ago
      It's a shame for you, then, that immigration has caused, to within margin of error, no actual problems except for an increase in the visibility of people who strongly oppose immigration.
devjab 2y ago
I’m not completely in agreement with many of your takes as I think things are often more complicated than how you outline them. EU decision making is long, not necessarily hard because of local interests but because it’s how EU diplomacy works. The disadvantage is that local countries often adopt their own standards and are then slow to adopt the EU ones when they eventually come out. It does happen over time, however, it’s just slow because the local businesses aren’t really going to do it until you force them to do so with legislation. But politicians rarely fight on behalf of their local solutions, often because those solutions ended up costing 10x of what was originally sold and usually taking 5+ years extra. It’s not like you’re wrong though. Except for this part. > This is due to software engineer not being prestigious job in many EU countries. When polled software engineering ranks among doctors, actual engineers and TikTok stars as what young people want to be. Though to be fair, software development is going down as people have realised it isn’t a get-rich quick scheme. Anyway. In the wider society Software Engineering is one of the higher regarded and prestigious fields in many European countries. If what you mean is getting recognition by the HN styled crowd then you are correct, but there is a lot of Italian, French, German, Polish and so on, speaking talent you won’t ever hear about in the English focused news. In fact a lot of the top tech talent is not going to the US but rather places like Dubai, Singapore or China because those places pay more. There are obviously people who head to the US but I’d still argue that it’s about money and not because they weren’t valued. You would see a lot of EU professionals migrate for pay if they could. Because EU is just more mediocre. That is not the right word, what I mean is that the sealing is lower. The floor is also often higher, but if you’re in a position where you can triple your already top level pay, then you’re probably going to take it. Now if you mean prestige as in pay, then yes.

ben_w 2y ago

N26 (Berlin), Revolut (London), and Trade Republic (Berlin) are all fintech startups based in Europe (Europe != EU, as per North America != USA). This story is mainly about the EU, but the UK was a non-trivial part of the EU tech scene before Brexit and Revolut was part of that scene and has offices in Lithuania and got a proper bank license in the EU three years before it got one in the UK. > The step further for this is open ledger, which comes to politics. Even in the EU we are worried that if someone runs this system, the "evil" countries like Hungary will exploit it, suck in all your personal data and sell to Russians. One or two problems there, depending on how you split them: 1) To avoid your data being sold to the Russians, you'll give it away for free? 2) The very fact that bank ledgers are not open, prevents one country — Hungary in your example — from having access to all of them.

benterix 2y ago

> "evil" countries like Hungary Governments, not countries. Hungary is a country like any other, it got a crazy power-hungry leader and just like all authoritarians he is right-leaning and Putin-friendly. But the whole country is not like that, and sooner or later this shit-show will end.

immibis 2y ago
They voted for him and they'll vote for more like him. Related: actual Nazism is on the rise in Germany, with the neonazi party recently winning control of two state governments.
- benterix 2y ago
  > Related: actual Nazism is on the rise in Germany, with the neonazi party recently winning control of two state governments. I actually blame previous governments for this, especially their "invite all possible immigrants, give them free money, and worry about consequences later". It didn't make any sense then and it doesn't now but they pulled it in spite of people knowing the consequences as these are clear in other countries. I strongly believe if they chose a more reasonable strategy, that is being more picky about 1) who is coming in, 2) in what quantities, 3) how to deal with non-integration, 4) regular revisions of immigration policies based on the reality - we wouldn't have the AfD problem now, at least not at this scale. You can clearly see from Putin's actions on Belorussian border with the EU that it is his main strategy for destabilizing Europe, one that works quite well.
  - immibis 2y ago
    It's a shame for you, then, that immigration has caused, to within margin of error, no actual problems except for an increase in the visibility of people who strongly oppose immigration.

devjab 2y ago

I’m not completely in agreement with many of your takes as I think things are often more complicated than how you outline them. EU decision making is long, not necessarily hard because of local interests but because it’s how EU diplomacy works. The disadvantage is that local countries often adopt their own standards and are then slow to adopt the EU ones when they eventually come out. It does happen over time, however, it’s just slow because the local businesses aren’t really going to do it until you force them to do so with legislation. But politicians rarely fight on behalf of their local solutions, often because those solutions ended up costing 10x of what was originally sold and usually taking 5+ years extra. It’s not like you’re wrong though. Except for this part. > This is due to software engineer not being prestigious job in many EU countries. When polled software engineering ranks among doctors, actual engineers and TikTok stars as what young people want to be. Though to be fair, software development is going down as people have realised it isn’t a get-rich quick scheme. Anyway. In the wider society Software Engineering is one of the higher regarded and prestigious fields in many European countries. If what you mean is getting recognition by the HN styled crowd then you are correct, but there is a lot of Italian, French, German, Polish and so on, speaking talent you won’t ever hear about in the English focused news. In fact a lot of the top tech talent is not going to the US but rather places like Dubai, Singapore or China because those places pay more. There are obviously people who head to the US but I’d still argue that it’s about money and not because they weren’t valued. You would see a lot of EU professionals migrate for pay if they could. Because EU is just more mediocre. That is not the right word, what I mean is that the sealing is lower. The floor is also often higher, but if you’re in a position where you can triple your already top level pay, then you’re probably going to take it. Now if you mean prestige as in pay, then yes.