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The only correct solution is something like the Brasilian pix. No fee paid for by taxes and the central bank just like the management of cash. A digital altern

The only correct solution is something like the Brasilian pix. No fee paid for by taxes and the central bank just like the management of cash. A digital alternative to cash offered by the central banks which are the ones responsible to enable financial transactions. Since so many are moving to cashless it is important for the central bank to retain control of the currency alternative to cash. We can not allow this explosion of middle men all taking a cut of something they should not be part off especially since they now have such power that they decide what you can and cannot buy instead of the laws of the land.

Voultapher 1y ago
Yep. The EU has also enacted various regulations to enable cheap bank to bank transfers and online payments but pix seems even better - haven't use it though. 3% transaction fees are ridiculous and only possible because Visa/MC have successfully - until now - lobbied against any good alternative in the US. Privatizing water supply is an awful deal for citizen - ask the UK - since the incentives are anti-consumer and public infrastructure is more often than not a monopoly by definition. I'd count transferring money online as public infrastructure and it should get the same treatment.
- sschueller 1y ago
  Switzerland has a huge conflict of interest with the banks and a similar P2P service (TWINT) that isn't free for merchants. This service is owned by the same banks that are supposed to by law implement instant IBAN to IBAN but of course those same banks have added fess to this.
  - mansa10 1y ago
    Same problem in Denmark with our banks. Our popular QR payment system, known as MobilePay, is owned by banks that have a financial interest in letting payments continue to process via visa/mc cards underneath, as they get a big interchange fee from reusing the legacy payment system. (around 0,2% interchange on a typical danish visa transaction). In the past, we had a popular nationally owned cheaper safeguard against foreign payment monopolies in the form of Dankort, a local visa/mc alternative, but the company operating Dankort (NETS) has been sold by our gov+danish banks to an american equity firm, further removing any incentive for danish banks to not just quietly force visa/mc on everyone, so Dankort is now slowly dying. The rent seeking is made even more perverse by the EU PSD2 legislation from 2018 that makes it illegal to forward payment fees onto shoppers, which removes all the textbook consumer behavior (judging price vs quality) from the equation. That law has created a situation where shoppers use whatever payment method their bank hands out to them and merchants are forced to blindly accept whatever shoppers use and pay up the fees which goes back to the same banks that decided what to give shoppers in the first place. End result of this is that the banks best move is to push visa/mc, make everything seem hard to change & confuse politicians. Systems like Pix give me hope but I don't believe the existing system can be saved, it needs to be replaced by a new actor, aggressively supported at EU or national level, probably both.
- guru4consulting 1y ago
  you are barking at the wrong tree. Banks are the real culprits here. Visa/MC are perhaps the front face.
- graemep 1y ago
  The UK has free and fast bank transfers for consumers but that is not quite reliably fast enough to be a payment mechanism for most purchases, nor can it be easily tied to transactions. The problem with things like UK water is privatisation and bad regulation. UK rail privatisation has not been too bad (the numbers do not support the claims made about it making things worse) - successful enough that the EU seems heading towards emulating it.
- ksec 1y ago
  Ran by Private companies are't always bad for public infrastructure as long as the proper requirements and frameworks are put in place. The problem, at the end of the day still comes down to quality of Government.
- immibis 1y ago
  BTW in the EU they successfully just declared, by fiat, that card networks could set their fees to 0.2% or lower, or they could fuck off. And suddenly the fees were, magically, 0.2%, and the card networks still choose to operate in the EU which proves they're still making money. There are no credit card rewards, but so what - that was just your money getting returned to you anyway.
  - ranger_danger 1y ago
    Offline transactions are max 0.2%, but online transactions are 1.5% for credit cards. https://paymentexpert.com/2024/07/08/visa-mastercard-european-union/ https://paymentexpert.com/2024/07/08/visa-mastercard-europea...
mhh__ 1y ago
Employees of the bank of England used to be allowed an account there, as recently as 20 years ago perhaps.
philistine 1y ago
I think it’s even possible without having the central bank manage the whole thing. In Canada we have Interac e-tranfer which is managed by a consortium of Canadian institutions. It is far from perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Which is one of the better approaches: government sets the priority and tells industry as a collective "figure it out, or we'll do it for you". It's ultimately the approach that got USB-C standardized for mobile device charging, but didn't mean subject matter experts at the firms building things were cut out of the process.
- jszymborski 1y ago
  I hate the idea of paying for something online with e-transfer, though. It's like mailing cash. If you get stiffed, there isn't much you can do. You can still process through the Interac network, but again you get get the same purchase insurance and also there is nothing stopping a group of people from pressuring interact not to process payments from a certain website as was the case with Itch.
  - philistine 1y ago
    Like I said, perfect is the enemy of good.
- kennywinker 1y ago
  $1/etransfer sucks. Bigger institutions get lower rates they can offer to customers - but that just serves to fend off challengers to our banking oligopoly.
always_imposter 1y ago
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Voultapher 1y ago

Yep. The EU has also enacted various regulations to enable cheap bank to bank transfers and online payments but pix seems even better - haven't use it though. 3% transaction fees are ridiculous and only possible because Visa/MC have successfully - until now - lobbied against any good alternative in the US. Privatizing water supply is an awful deal for citizen - ask the UK - since the incentives are anti-consumer and public infrastructure is more often than not a monopoly by definition. I'd count transferring money online as public infrastructure and it should get the same treatment.

sschueller 1y ago
Switzerland has a huge conflict of interest with the banks and a similar P2P service (TWINT) that isn't free for merchants. This service is owned by the same banks that are supposed to by law implement instant IBAN to IBAN but of course those same banks have added fess to this.
- mansa10 1y ago
  Same problem in Denmark with our banks. Our popular QR payment system, known as MobilePay, is owned by banks that have a financial interest in letting payments continue to process via visa/mc cards underneath, as they get a big interchange fee from reusing the legacy payment system. (around 0,2% interchange on a typical danish visa transaction). In the past, we had a popular nationally owned cheaper safeguard against foreign payment monopolies in the form of Dankort, a local visa/mc alternative, but the company operating Dankort (NETS) has been sold by our gov+danish banks to an american equity firm, further removing any incentive for danish banks to not just quietly force visa/mc on everyone, so Dankort is now slowly dying. The rent seeking is made even more perverse by the EU PSD2 legislation from 2018 that makes it illegal to forward payment fees onto shoppers, which removes all the textbook consumer behavior (judging price vs quality) from the equation. That law has created a situation where shoppers use whatever payment method their bank hands out to them and merchants are forced to blindly accept whatever shoppers use and pay up the fees which goes back to the same banks that decided what to give shoppers in the first place. End result of this is that the banks best move is to push visa/mc, make everything seem hard to change & confuse politicians. Systems like Pix give me hope but I don't believe the existing system can be saved, it needs to be replaced by a new actor, aggressively supported at EU or national level, probably both.
guru4consulting 1y ago
you are barking at the wrong tree. Banks are the real culprits here. Visa/MC are perhaps the front face.
graemep 1y ago
The UK has free and fast bank transfers for consumers but that is not quite reliably fast enough to be a payment mechanism for most purchases, nor can it be easily tied to transactions. The problem with things like UK water is privatisation and bad regulation. UK rail privatisation has not been too bad (the numbers do not support the claims made about it making things worse) - successful enough that the EU seems heading towards emulating it.
ksec 1y ago
Ran by Private companies are't always bad for public infrastructure as long as the proper requirements and frameworks are put in place. The problem, at the end of the day still comes down to quality of Government.
immibis 1y ago
BTW in the EU they successfully just declared, by fiat, that card networks could set their fees to 0.2% or lower, or they could fuck off. And suddenly the fees were, magically, 0.2%, and the card networks still choose to operate in the EU which proves they're still making money. There are no credit card rewards, but so what - that was just your money getting returned to you anyway.
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  Offline transactions are max 0.2%, but online transactions are 1.5% for credit cards. https://paymentexpert.com/2024/07/08/visa-mastercard-european-union/ https://paymentexpert.com/2024/07/08/visa-mastercard-europea...

mhh__ 1y ago

Employees of the bank of England used to be allowed an account there, as recently as 20 years ago perhaps.

philistine 1y ago

I think it’s even possible without having the central bank manage the whole thing. In Canada we have Interac e-tranfer which is managed by a consortium of Canadian institutions. It is far from perfect, but perfect is the enemy of good.

XorNot 1y ago
Which is one of the better approaches: government sets the priority and tells industry as a collective "figure it out, or we'll do it for you". It's ultimately the approach that got USB-C standardized for mobile device charging, but didn't mean subject matter experts at the firms building things were cut out of the process.
jszymborski 1y ago
I hate the idea of paying for something online with e-transfer, though. It's like mailing cash. If you get stiffed, there isn't much you can do. You can still process through the Interac network, but again you get get the same purchase insurance and also there is nothing stopping a group of people from pressuring interact not to process payments from a certain website as was the case with Itch.
- philistine 1y ago
  Like I said, perfect is the enemy of good.
kennywinker 1y ago
$1/etransfer sucks. Bigger institutions get lower rates they can offer to customers - but that just serves to fend off challengers to our banking oligopoly.

always_imposter 1y ago

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