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Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

• RalfWausE 8mo ago
  Good. To hell with american corporations!
• MonkeyIsNull 8mo ago
  Nothing in France takes Discover, and my bank decided to go with Discover about 6 months ago. "Great" decision, thanks.
  • yosito 8mo ago
    Yeah, really dumb move on the part of Chase bank. They'd previously marketed their accounts as being geared towards international travelers, but now their cards can't be used in much of the world.
    • qingcharles 8mo ago
      Capital One just switched too.
      • AshleyGrant 8mo ago
        https://investor.capitalone.com/news-releases/news-release-details/capital-one-completes-acquisition-discover https://investor.capitalone.com/news-releases/news-release-d... They didn't just switch. They purchased Discover. edit: added the "just"
        • LgWoodenBadger 8mo ago
          Well, “just” as in “recently forced everyone to replace their cards” also works. My CapitalOne mastercard was deactivated January 14, even though it was still valid through 2030.
    • deleted 8mo ago
      [deleted]
  • yardie 8mo ago
    My wife found out her new card was Discover debit card right before her trip to France. Her bank sent her a new card unrequested. In an abundance of caution she activated the new card which automatically cancelled her debit Mastercard. Then when she landed in CDG found the new card didn't work anywhere.
    • Curiositiy 8mo ago
      This is what these peeps advocating for an "EU-based payment system" don't get, as they typically don't travel worldwide. VISA + Master just work. Have a debit plus credit for one each. (And no, Google / Apple pay won't do it, everyone who calls themselves a "hacker" should know that you too often can't even pay for transport using a rooted phone).
      • aveao 8mo ago
        We do actually. The German Girocards were, until Maestro ceased to exist, often co-issued as Maestro + Girocard, and global acceptance was pretty good under the Mastercard network. There are examples of other co-branded national payment systems out there (troy + Discover comes to mind). If a European payment system (with cards, at a store) is to exist, then visa/mc will still want a piece of the pie by at least playing along to remain as a co-brand and taking their cuts from international payments.
      • danelski 8mo ago
        Aside from what the other commenter said about the hybrid systems, you proudly state that you have 4 cards at minimum, but having a system that would work continent-wide for ~98% of all money you spend would not bootstrap if someone needed to be bothered with having a separate travel card, which would rest in the drawer or as second Apple/Google/Garmin Pay choice most of the time? Most adults I know have 2+ cards already, it's just that they were issued by Master Card or Visa. American Express and Discover still exist, despite definitely not having worldwide coverage.
      • markvdb 8mo ago
        VISA + Master just work _for now_. Debanking Nicolas Guillou[0] was a financial Greenland. Short-term negative-sum transactionalists are governing the US. Even if November stabilises things somewhat, the cat is probably out of the bag. Trust comes on foot, but leaves on horseback. _That_ is why a well-integrated EU-based payment system is needed. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Guillou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Guillou
  • aveao 8mo ago
    fwiw: Discover technically goes through amex network in EU, and amex acceptance varies from pretty good (e.g. germany) to pretty awful. Completely incomparable to visa and mc acceptance ofc.
  • maest 8mo ago
    Just use wise or revolut.
    • direwolf20 8mo ago
      "Just" get another bank account before travelling. Right...
      • maest 8mo ago
        I meant that as more of a long term solution. Even if your domestic bank supports overseas payments, they most likely screw you on the fx rates, so just get a specialised card like Wise or Revolut. It's free, their tech is great and their fx rates are more than fair.
  • netfortius 8mo ago
    I thought the same, when my US bank (capital one) decided to change my debit card to their newly acquired Discover network. Sure enough, CIC and La Poste accept it for cash withdrawals, which preserves the advantage of great exchange rate, and no currency exchange fees (unlike wise, for example). Credit cards seem to stay on Mastercard (e.g. capital one) and visa (e.g. Chase), so still some life left with those, also. Wish the European solution will eventually have a rewards/points system, to bring it up to par with the US cards.
• tlogan 8mo ago
  So Wero is not a credit card, but something more like Venmo? How is it supposed to replace Visa and Mastercard?
  • bux93 8mo ago
    It's for online payments only. You click on the wero button on a website/app, if on mobile takes you to your banking app (on desktop, you scan a QR code), you do MFA on your banking app and confirm, and the payment is done. Wero are not in the business of issuing cards, though obviously they could get into that business - just like UnionPay did in China. I suspect there would be a lot of inertia there, as card payment fees are capped in Europe anyway.
    • prmoustache 8mo ago
      Cards are also online payment. You can already pay with such systems in some physical shops and restaurants, alongside google/apple/alipay.
      • mathis 8mo ago
        But cards are offline from the perspective of the consumer. Sometimes even on the merchant side of things. Not that it is an important distinction nowadays--but I have definitely tried to pay with a merchant's own app-based payment solution that refused to load due to a bad cellular connection. I haven't looked into how Wero will handle this.
        • prmoustache 8mo ago
          Most payment terminal nowadays use 4g network and it is not uncommon to see shop/restaurants employees in some areas trying to desperately get a signal by moving the terminal close to the door or window.
          • tuetuopay 8mo ago
            They need much much less data than your phone. They could process several transactions with less data it would take for your phone to load the HTML of the payment page, let alone the Javascript or the bank's logo. Also, such terminals often use multi-carrier data plans that can use the best carrier available, while your own phone is stuck with one of the options (of course, you always have the worst one).
• deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
• computomatic 8mo ago
  Most, if not all countries have their own domestic payment systems. This is about cross-border payments within the EU. “Breakup” seems a bit exaggerated considering the % of payment volume which might switch to the new system.
  • Anonyneko 8mo ago
    Russia switched 100% of its payments seamlessly, no reason for the EU not to do the same. Build up the network and tell banks to use that network even for transactions initiated with Visa/MC cards. At that point cards are still usable, but effectively a piece of identification plastic not directly controlled by Visa/MC anymore.
    • seydor 8mo ago
      > seamlessly It's not seamless if it includes a war, global isolation, exodus of all business and disconnection of the banks. This means they were left with no alternative, in which case, sure, it's 'seamless' to use the only alternative method. Europe will have a lot of friction with consumer habits and Visa will always be relevant for buying things from outside EU. These are all competing entities which hate anything that makes them seamlessly lose their business.
      • postsantum 8mo ago
        Russia did it after 2014, not after 2022. So yes, it was seamless
      • Anonyneko 8mo ago
        That's not how it worked, Russia prepared well in advance before the war (admittedly, after Crimea-related sanctions scared the hell out of them in 2014). When the 2022 sanctions dropped, transactions within Russian borders kept working seamlessly because the banks were already using the Mir network for those regardless of card types, i.e. you can still use your Russian-bank-issued Visa today for internal purchases. And I firmly believe that Europe needs the same kind of security for its digital payment systems, something akin to IBAN that solved this for EU-wide bank transfers (which is why I'm not sure if it's wise to use some random commercial product as a base). Of course, right now nothing can dethrone Visa/MC for international payments, besides perhaps crypto in very limited and often shady scenarios. And Europe can't really do anything about that. But that's a different problem altogether (one that annoys me to no end as a frequent purchaser of digital products from Japan).
• ekjhgkejhgk 8mo ago
  I always find it entertaining to hear people try to argue that what these companies do is soooooo difficult and that's why they're valuable. It's just multiple computers keeping a balance. It's not complicated. No, these companies keep themselves in power not because they've solved such a difficult problem that nobody else can, but because they have a moat which they protect. Time to do away with these foreign entities.
  • ajb 8mo ago
    Each individual detail isn't difficult, the moat is dealing with a huge, huge, pile of them. But most of the details are driven by laws and regulations: of the entity in charge of those things decides it doesn't want you to have a moat any more, you've got a problem. If there's one thing the EU really does have, it's the capacity to revise regulations.
    • arghwhat 8mo ago
      Rather than a moat of details, it's first-mover advantage. Anyone can run a credit card network, but merchants and banks need to support them. Many others exist, but the issue is that they don't have widespread adoption. Solutions that work exist, which means the lesser supported alternative is not widely used, which again reduces reason for wider adoption... Regulation changes "why bother" to "oh crap".
      • black_puppydog 8mo ago
        jup. once this is built, if adoption is lacking, it's not hard to imagine how the EU could make it the standard payment option.
    • saubeidl 8mo ago
      > If there's one thing the EU really does have, it's the capacity to revise regulations. This is the central power lever of the EU and one that is frequently underestimated. European power projection doesn't work through tanks and aircraft carriers. It works with regulations, trade deals and economic incentives. Remember how a few years ago everyone was scrambling to get GDPR-compliant? That wasn't some random event. That was the EU projecting power. Why do iPhones have USB-C now? European soft power. Why are things like Champagne and Prosciutto di Parma protected brands that can only be sold if they're from the actual region? And I mean not just in Europe itself, but everywhere it has deals? Canada, Japan, India, China, Mercosur, etc etc? European soft power. The EU is playing a different game from the other major players. Not one of brute force, but one of shifting the foundational rules of commerce in their favor. And they're very good at it.
• Jyaif 8mo ago
  > National pride and competing banking interests repeatedly sabotaged attempts at unification. That's exactly the problem. Several actors have won the market of their country, but only of their country. Will Trump be enough to make the europeans realize that they need to work together, and that an italian win is just as good as a german win?
  • rolandog 8mo ago
    But more importantly, that walled gardens should be abolished and portability and compatibility of user accounts should be enshrined into law and protected at all costs.
    • Jyaif 8mo ago
      That's a great point. With more open systems there can be multiple winners, instead of a single winner that takes all.
  • hinata08 8mo ago
    >and that an italian win is just as good as a german win I agree with you However that specific example somehow feels off and déjà vu
  • ajsnigrutin 8mo ago
    > and that an italian win is just as good as a german win? For someone from france, sure. For both italians and germans, it matters who wins (and i'm not making a pun here).
• lencastre 8mo ago
  logbuch netzpolitik did an episode last year about this wero and honestly… i got the impression it doesn’t bode well for wero
• compounding_it 8mo ago
  When India moved to UPI in the last few years something very interesting happened. The same devices that accept UPI (usually some android based POS) also accepted a plethora of cards. Previously merchants would be hesitant to take anything other than cash or charge 2% for visa/mastercard. But with wide adoption of digital payments they now just accept any payment with the goal that they don't want bad reviews and/or lose customers. Point being that with a cheap alternative, it's actually much more convenient now to use a Visa or Mastercard especially with tap to pay because with competition being so high, the diversity means people allow all payments.
  • hirako2000 8mo ago
    You mean that the 2% something visa/Mastercard demand, is far more digestible by merchants when it doesn't represent the majority of their revenue?
    • compounding_it 8mo ago
      If previously 3 merchants had visa / Mastercard out of 10 who only accepted cash or cheques, then with UPI all 10 now accept UPI but 7 or 8 accept a universal POS which allows more type of payments. If previously 10% payments were via cards that costed them 2%, then now if sales are 2-3x because of UPI and online payments, letting go of that 2% for even 20% share of cards is fine because they captured a larger market with more sales. Not so long ago, India was a cash dominant economy so UPI actually opened that up. UPI actually helped Visa and Mastercard. Credit card spending has gone up a lot because of digitalization. If in EU a local payment system captures the cash market, then the habit of using digital payments will actually also help Visa and Mastercard make more sale. I currently don't have a credit card, but when I do, I find paying by a Visa/MasterCard much more preferable than UPI, simply because it's easier by tapping.
      • hdra 8mo ago
        >simply because it's easier by tapping i was under the impression UPI is just the underlying protocol, but an interface can be built on top be it tapping/QR/others? is that not the case?
• hnfong 8mo ago
  Even putting aside issue of geopolitics, it's quite baffling to me that every country besides China and Russia are paying ~0.2% "sales tax" to corporate America.
  • hirako2000 8mo ago
    Not 0.2% Visa: 1.3% to 2.3% Mastercard: 1.5% to 2.6% Mastercard: 2.3% to 3.5% Nothing precise as it depends on whether that's debit vs credit cards, and the type of card. Also volume related and what the bank may subsidize, or take on top.
    • aveao 8mo ago
      The payment processing rates offered vary by country. It rarely goes above 1% in Germany unless you're really not shopping around or are really low volume. A % of that also goes to the issuing bank*, not to MC/Visa, so I suspect the mentioned 0.2% is talking about what MC/Visa has as their cut. *: That's also how banks can profitably offer things like cashback.
      • Iulioh 8mo ago
        Depends if we are talking credit or debt cards The low fees are for debt and high for credit cards and VISA/MC won't allow you to accebt only the debt cards
        • aveao 8mo ago
          The fees for those are still often comparatively lower to the US rates posted above. Credit cards are also not popular here, so while I do own one, I suspect average % of a merchant still remains low. Amex also offers pretty good rates to low-volume merchants here to have more acceptance to my understanding.
          • hirako2000 8mo ago
            The rates I posted are the full range. Because it varies yes. You suspect average percentage is low but try to get a payment processor agreement and see within two years what you actually pay overall. It may get even above the rates I mentioned with fix costs the jeopardy to your business when a fraud does occur and the issuer blocks you from accepting any payment, or worse, accuses you of being the fraudster. We are well educated by the financial system and VISA/Mastercard to believe this technology is for our own good. Many in the financial industry denounces their predatory practice, that of a cartel of 2 or 3 that imposed a dictate for decades. Things are finally changing, resistance will continue but you will see QR or some alternative will settle in.
• mhitza 8mo ago
  If you have the cash its super easy. Need to have at least 300k euro frozen in the account, go through the process of getting EMI (european money institute) licensed and start fiddling with GNU Taler.
  • miroljub 8mo ago
    I'd rather have a GNU Taler based system (private for consumers, transparent for the business), but given the overextending urge to destroy any remaining privacy by EU governments, I doubt it would ever happen. Instead, we are getting a digital euro, a fully dystopian abomination.
    • mhitza 8mo ago
      As far as I know the "digital euro" should allow for offline payments. At least in principle I should be able to offload to an offline/on-device wallet and give money to anyone without the servers knowledge. But I'm sure there are plenty of villains and idiots that will try (and succeed) in diluting those principles and will get some dystopian (trace everything) version of that.
    • Sabinus 8mo ago
      How is a digital euro worse than the current American dependant system?
• miohtama 8mo ago
  This is the fourth attempt in two decades. Here is the short history of earlier attempts: https://x.com/moo9000/status/2006304163404128289 https://x.com/moo9000/status/2006304163404128289 The difference this time is that Digital Euro is forced by ECB and control (and deposits) are taken away from banks.
  • lysace 8mo ago
    Let's be real: The difference this time is the open hostility from the US towards Europe. It's now been about a month since a White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor openly talked about/advocated for taking Greenland by force. POTUS was vague for a while. Northern European nations sent like a hundred military officers to Greenland. POTUS then threatened those nations with, wait for it, tariffs. Then the markets crashed and Rutte/Nato provided a face-saving de-escalation path.
  • dmix 8mo ago
    The OP article itself explains the history > The core problem has always been fragmentation. Each EU country developed its own domestic payment solution — Bizum in Spain, iDEAL in the Netherlands, Payconiq in Belgium, Girocard in Germany — but none could work across borders. A Belgian consumer buying from a Dutch retailer still needed Visa or Mastercard. National pride and competing banking interests repeatedly sabotaged attempts at unification. > The network effect compounds the challenge. Merchants accept Visa and Mastercard because consumers carry them. Consumers carry them because merchants accept them. Breaking that loop requires either regulatory force or a critical mass of users large enough to make merchants care — which is precisely what the EuroPA deal attempts to deliver by connecting existing national user bases rather than building from scratch.
• mentalgear 8mo ago
  Would be nice of the EU to provide a digital payment service quasi free of charge - without commercial provider's typical predatory fees and other costs. And don't counter with "privacy" .. it's not like all the American companies already have to provide backend access to their data to the NSA and other 3 letter agencies.
  • warkdarrior 8mo ago
    They will, and with privacy guarantees. But all liability will be on the consumer, and none in the merchant or the banks.
  • atwrk 8mo ago
    Wero, the system the article is about, already is free for personal transfers and 0,15€ for commercial acounts (at least for my bank)
  • glenneroo 8mo ago
    Uhm, the EU already has free instant SEPA transfers? I use it regularly, sadly not all EU banks support it (smaller ones sometimes have issues and have to resort to standard oldschool 2-day transfer, but they are also free).
    • danelski 8mo ago
      How do you do your groceries with that?
      • glenneroo 8mo ago
        With debit cards or cash like everyone else?
        • danelski 8mo ago
          Then instant bank transfers didn't really help you with this use case, did they?
• satyamkapoor 8mo ago
  Wero isn’t even supported by all banks in the EU. :/
  • randunel 8mo ago
    All banks in the EU are part of their respective national pay schemes. They need to figure out a way for the national pay schemes to add wero compatibility.
• mzajc 8mo ago
  Can I use it without installing their software on my smartphone? Question is rhetorical - of course not, and your smartphone also needs to pass Google's or Apple's remote attestation schemes. Good riddance. Is it really just PayPal left offering a sane online payment service? --- From https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599074240401-What-devices-support-the-Wero-app https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599074240...: > It is not possible to use Wero via a web browser or on a computer.
  • bluegreen10294 8mo ago
    Yes, you can. They have an app, but also integrations into bank apps.
    • markvdb 8mo ago
      That's interesting. In Belgium the pre-integration Payconiq could not do that.
  • deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
• fodmap 8mo ago
  (Almost?) all these EU efforts to be independent from the USA are born with a fatal flaw. They require you need to be an Apple user or a Google user.
  • u1hcw9nx 8mo ago
    this don't require that.
    • polski-g 8mo ago
      https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599074240401-What-devices-support-the-Wero-app https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599074240... > The Wero app can be installed on any mobile device or tablet running iOS 16 or later, or Android version 9 or later. We recommend updating your device to the latest version of its operating system for maximum performance, convenience and security. > It is not possible to use Wero via a web browser or on a computer.
  • coffeebeqn 8mo ago
    Next step EU can force phone manufacturers to offer root access so we can start the year of the Linux mobile
    • mrits 8mo ago
      North Korea would be very excited about this
  • gib444 8mo ago
    Exactly. Taking control from Visa and MasterCard...and handing it to Apple and Google. Well done, EU Your comment is of course downvoted
  • KaiserPro 8mo ago
    Right, but you do understand that solving every problem all at once is far harder than focusing on a few key ones and doing it properly right?
• tamimio 8mo ago
  > Wero lets users send money using just a phone number Of course, what could go wrong!! Unbelievable, a chance to make a whole new standard, new system, new everything, but yet we still have the need to tie it to ancient protocols, only to find later it’s broken by design and we start adding all sort of duct tape solutions to make it “secure”.. This is either a completely and entirely stupid move by some boomers living in the 80s, or maybe, it’s intentional to enforce something insecure like a phone number/GSM as a “national ID” to easily track citizens and force them to have a phone number linked to their real life, and I think it’s the second one, the same reason why many “secure” chatting apps still require a phone number.
  • jacekm 8mo ago
    TBH many European payment apps use the phone number as an ID and people seem to love it. I share the privacy concerns but if I don't want someone to know my phone number I just give them my IBAN.
    • hermanzegerman 8mo ago
      I would rather give out my Phone Number than watching my account for sketchy direct debits if I was wary of some person
  • gib444 8mo ago
    It screams of needing a Google or Apple app
  • trinix912 8mo ago
    We have had these apps in various EU countries for quite a while and it's been fine. You can get a prepaid SIM from a grocery store and register it with them, and so on. You can always SEPA transfer the money if you don't want to use this. It's also more convenient than giving out an opaque UUID to your friend to transfer you money or something similar. The bigger problem I see with this is it being one more service locked exclusively to Android and iOS devices, but it's the same with most currently used banking apps anyways.
• darkwater 8mo ago
  In the end we will need to thanks Trump if we actually get a more federated and less centralized Internet (well, or layers on top of the Internet)
• tzs 8mo ago
  I wonder if this will draw tariff threats? Last August US threatened tariffs on Brazil over their Pix system. One of the reasons given was that people using Pix instead of credit cards deprived Visa and Mastercard of fees.
  • autoexec 8mo ago
    When anything or nothing at all can draw tariff threats at any time it stops making sense to worry about what may or may not anger an insane clown overseas and you should just do the best thing for your nation and its people. Reducing dependence on the US is the smart thing to do and retaliation would just make it more obvious how important it is to get away from the US to the extent that you can as fast as possible.
  • coffeebeqn 8mo ago
    Sending a few officers to a fellow NATO country draws tariff threats..
  • prmoustache 8mo ago
    I think we have reach a point where the US have annoyed so much its past commercial partners that nobody care about tariff anymore and everybody want to do commerce with everyone EXCEPT the USA.
  • marcosdumay 8mo ago
    > Last August US threatened tariffs on Brazil over their Pix system. Just a correction: the US imposed those tariffs. Threatened too, I guess, but the Orange Man did more than that.
• mdavid626 8mo ago
  I use ING DIBA bank. I enabled WERO in the app, as that’s the only way for me to use it. I can send money ONLY to my contacts. It doesn’t allow to type in phone number, one needs to create a contact. I feel like Europe is just doomed. The stupidity is endless here.
  • glenneroo 8mo ago
    Yeah but now we have instant EU-wide SEPA transfers for free, so it's not all stupidity! Also it took years to implement - banks are slow at implementing new tech. WERO is still very new, if it takes off, eventually banks will hopefully support it.
    • mdavid626 8mo ago
      When I sold my car, the buyer wanted to use instant payments. Sounds good! It didn’t work for the amount we needed (over 15k).
      • glenneroo 8mo ago
        Weird, I googled around and I see every bank has their own limits, and all banks I could find claim a 30-100k or no limit at all. Whatever LLM duckduckgo is using says 10k and ability increase as more transactions are made (to increase trust) - but it's probably using outdated data. When did you try this? I'm guessing more than a year ago.
• Mister_Snuggles 8mo ago
  I'm surprised that Canada doesn't seem to be talking about doing this. We've already got a strong payment processing brand with Interac, it's used daily for millions of debit transactions, and supports all the features you'd expect (in Canada) from a payment card (tap, chip&pin). There's also the MasterCard Debit and Visa Debit branding which seem to bridge debit transactions to the MasterCard and Visa networks. And there's already Interac-capable terminals basically everywhere that Visa and MC are accepted. My thought is that Interac should launch a credit card brand called "Interac Credit". The actual credit would be via the banks, just like it is with Visa and MC. Interac already has the relationships with merchants and banks to make this happen, and it has the mindshare with consumers to make it successful.
  • ehhthing 8mo ago
    This would still rely on Visa/MasterCard allowing dual-branded credit cards for overseas transactions, which isn't a very common arrangement. The only market that has this is in Asia where there are UnionPay + Visa/MasterCard dual branded cards and I suspect that the reason they allow this is because the market is huge, especially compared to Canada. Also Interac does not do online transactions outside of some very specific merchants that take Apple/Google Pay transactions. This is how Interac reduces fraud risk, which is why interchange rates for Interac are so low.
    • kspacewalk2 8mo ago
      You can do this in multiple steps. Start with a credit card usable only with Canadian merchants, which will cover a great majority of transactions of a great majority of Canadians. I'll have an MC for travel and the ordering from non-Canadian merchants, and this Canadian credit card for the other 95% of my expenses. If a significant percentage of Canadians have such a card, major non-Canadian services will add it as a payment option (e.g. ChatGPT or Claude). Then you branch out by either joining or co-branding with the EU credit card company if such a company succeeds. A world with a patchwork of payments processing options will look different for travel and business, in some ways worse, but such is life in a "multipolar world" which the Americans elected their leadership to conjure up.
• startupsfail 8mo ago
  "Wero lets users send money using just a phone number — no IBAN, no card, no intermediary." As long as all the other cards still get acceptance, this seems like a great system.
• thompson2908 8mo ago
  In Poland we have quite popular and handy BLIK system: https://www.blik.com https://www.blik.com Card terminals here in Poland usually accept BLIK payments It is also very popular payment method in e-commerce
  • tasuki 8mo ago
    BLIK is very cool. I've seen people who were out of cash call family or friends, tell them the six digit code, and their payment was done in seconds. In Czech Republic we have QR payments. They're ok, but could be more streamlined...
  • coffeebeqn 8mo ago
    We have MobilePay - looks like it’s made by Vipps. It’s my preferred payment method these days and works great for things like farmer markets etc. zero fees and you can verify you got the right counterparty in seconds. I also pay e-commerce with it. The technology is not complicated to have an excellent payment system! People who think getting rid of Visa is impossible have not travelled anywhere - I even see people talk about PayPal as a good example smh
• atwrk 8mo ago
  Many comments here assume this is about some hypothetical future project. Just to be clear: Wero is already live and in use.
• insane_dreamer 8mo ago
  China successfully did this with UnionPay; no reason why the EU can't do the same.
  • dude250711 8mo ago
    China is a country.
• ExpertAdvisor01 8mo ago
  People here don’t understand that Visa and Mastercard get only a small part of the fee. Most of it goes to the issuer and the acquiring banks.
  • Closi 8mo ago
    I suspect they aren’t doing this (just) to avoid fees - it’s more about national security in a world where the US might stop being a reliable ally, and in a world where the US has used withdrawing Visa / Mastercard as a strategy to weaken enemy economies.
    • speedgoose 8mo ago
      I think the recent stories of the International Criminal Court judge being forbidden to use VISA and Mastercard, making his life somewhat more challenging, did make some politicians aware of the risks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Guillou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Guillou
• theturtle 8mo ago
  [dead]
• Iolaum 8mo ago
  I m wondering why they are trying to build a competing product rather than a successor product? The digital euro could be a good candidate here and it also aspires to have cash-like privacy features. It's also mentioned in the article as separate and hopefully non overlapping product.
  • direwolf20 8mo ago
    CBDC euro upends the entire economic structure of the entire union, which could be very good or very bad and definitely needs to be approached with extreme caution. But card networks used with ordinary banks are a known quantity.
• anal_reactor 8mo ago
  What changed between then and now is that plastic cards stopped being the objectively best way to pay. Most countries already have online payment systems that are safer and easier to use than plastic cards - Wero is about putting them under one brand one network. Once this is done and people are familiar with the brand, you need to update terminals to accept Wero, then you roll out a software update that makes bank apps use virtual Wero cards or something like that. It's not as much about replacing Visa/Mastercard, as it is about plastic card technology becoming obsolete, and the duopoly failing to react to the market because of corporate inertia. Had they created a modern online payment system, Wero would never take off.
• lysace 8mo ago
  Lots of skepticism on how Europe could possibly handle something like that on their own. NASDAQ (NYC) currently runs on software/systems built and maintained by Stockholm-based developers. NASDAQ merged with Swedish OMX in 2008, founded as Optionsmäklarna OM AB in the 80s.
• severino 8mo ago
  Whatever they come up with, I hope it doesn't tie you to a Google or Apple smartphone. Can't we have cards for this? In Spain, for example, to use Bizum, you need either an Android/iOS smartphone (and for the Android case, as you use it from your bank's app, it would typically require some Google security assurances - so no Huawei phones allowed, for example) or logging into your bank's website and use Bizum from there, only if your bank allows you to use Bizum via web. And it's not very practical or convenient to do that when you're in a store and want to pay, in contrast to swiping your credit card. So while I see very convenient gaining some sovereignty from American companies for these payments, I think we're losing it when we will need devices controlled by other American companies in order to use the new system.
  • pjmlp 8mo ago
    On Portugal we have the Multibanco network, which already provided Internet like services for buying stuff on the terminals and eventually graduated to have online payments as well, however only in Portugal. Likewise, in Germany we can have SEPA for most stuff. And in Greece there is Viva. Problem is getting something that actually works across all European countries.
    • bjghknggkk 8mo ago
      Show me a german webshop that supports modern payment methods. It usually old school bank transfers still.
      • looperhacks 8mo ago
        I have never paid anything via bank transfer, where are you buying?
      • heikkilevanto 8mo ago
        I just bought Kampot peppers from https://www.unclespepper.com/ https://www.unclespepper.com/ which is in Germany, the name notwithstanding. And yes, I paid with my Danish Visa card. No problems except that I had to adjust my ad blocker once.
• NicoJuicy 8mo ago
  That's 2-3,5% extra growth for the EU.
• lenerdenator 8mo ago
  If only they'd moved so quickly with Russian natural gas in 2008 when Georgia was invaded.
• Coeur 8mo ago
  Not sure Wero will succeed, but European country-specific mobile payment systems like Swish (Sweden), Vipps (rest of Scandinavia), Bizum (Spain), iDeal (Netherlands), Bluecode (Germany and Austria), Twint (Switzerland), BLIK (Poland) etc. are also working on interconnectivity under the EMPSA association. Combined they already have 110+ million users. Wero is like a monolith, while EMPSA is more like mobile phone roaming. If I would bet, I would bet on EMPSA. https://empsa.org https://empsa.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_Systems_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_System...
  • Ninn 8mo ago
    Like sepa, this initiative can be forced by law and made open rather than tanken hostage by large cooperates, which may then exclude parts of the market.
    • HunOL 8mo ago
      Very European approach: the winner is chosen by law. Is Wero really a success? According to this article, in 2024 it processed over €7.5 billion. Polish BLIK, which is not even mentioned in the article and which has joined the EuroPA Alliance, processed €83 billion in 2024, with a 30% y/y increase in H1 2025. I understand that BLIK is much older, but it invested significant effort and money in marketing and promotions while delivering a good user experience. BLIK is now trying to expand to Romania and Slovakia, yet Wero is getting all the hype on Hacker News. Maybe this is a case of East, South, and West Europe being treated differently. Is the only “European” solution one that comes from Western Europe?
      • leokennis 8mo ago
        Wero is very new, no wonder it’s not used a lot yet. Wero is basically a rename (and territorial expansion) of the Dutch iDeal system, which processed €141 billion Euros in 2024.
        • tagyro 8mo ago
• Esophagus4 8mo ago
  Sigh The fact that EU sees dependence on American tech in the same way as Russian oil now is saddening and telling. Americans and American companies had it really good - our tech extracted money from the world, and they were mostly willing to pay for it. And it was an incredible advantage to the US. But now, it seems that we are happily throwing all that away, for what benefit I do not yet see. Regardless of whether this effort succeeds, why stoke this fire at all? I would say I hope Americans realize what they’ve done by making their own companies enemies of the world at large, but I’m not holding my breath for any sort of self reflection.
  • dboreham 8mo ago
    Malignant Narcissists always self destruct.
  • _usf6 8mo ago
    trump is disliked by the majority of Americans, and his actions antagonizing Europe are disliked even by most republicans. this is an obvious fact accessible to anyone who reads the news. he will only be around for 2 more years and will be effectively a lame duck after republicans get crushed in the midterms, starting 2027. all of this infrastructure Europe claims to want to build will take many many years to realize, particularly at the relaxed European pace. trump will be out of office by the time the EU has held it's fifteenth planning meeting to issue it's first strongly worded letter of intent.
  • 0xDEAFBEAD 8mo ago
    The Europeans spent years scolding us for being warmongers. Then when Ukraine got invaded, they quickly switched to scolding Biden for not warmongering harder in Ukraine. Zero self-awareness. America was called an "enemy of Europe" (before the Greenland stuff) even though it was more generous towards Ukraine than a bunch of European countries, and essentially every country outside of Europe. Polls showed that China has higher approval than the US in Europe, despite the fact that China actively supplies war material to Russia. Again, this was before the Greenland stuff (I'm against that obviously). There's no point in trying to please these people. They regard us as a vassal state. They're not joking when they say they think of Americans as idiots. We should've withdrawn from NATO a long time ago. Hopefully Europe's corporate boycotts will help to pass Massie's withdrawal bill. It will also be interesting to see drug prices in Europe rise after the Europeans spent years making fun of the US for high drug prices. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/trumps-pharmaceutical-plan.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/02/tr... The Europeans tend to reap what they sow in the US/Europe relationship.
• jacekm 8mo ago
  Like the article mentioned many EU countries have their own payment systems. The challenge is not to build something from the scratch but rather to make existing solutions interoperable. The first talks about cross-border integrations started many years ago but they went very slowly. However, some work is being done, just a week ago a first transfer was done from Spanish Bizum to Polish Blik.
  • lysace 8mo ago
    If there's anything the EU is good at, it's inter-op in markets.
• jagermo 8mo ago
  Wero is fun to use, but there so many features missing. The terminals, for example. Or, an easy way for vendors or car rental agencies to block a set amount when you rent a car. However, all of these things can be built and I hope Wero gets the time to grow into a full alternative to US-based payment systems. Not because I want them to fail, but because this market can use a bit of competition and new ideas.
  • kubanczyk 8mo ago
    Yes, actually car rentals is the only reason why I still keep a credit card. I vastly prefer that to any kind of insurance. Probably merchants like Netflix would also love recurring payment functionality. Let's just hope they'll make them cancelable this yime.
• qwertox 8mo ago
  I didn't care at all about Wero until Trump indirectly declared us Europeans as enemies. Now I really hope that it manages to replace Visa/Mastercard. Though at least in Germany we have "girocards/EC-cards" that are not owned by Visa/Mastercard. Some banks are phasing them out in favor of a Visa/Mastercard debit card. So maybe this is just an attempt to make Wero a bit stronger in comparison to PayPal. AFAIK Wero does not replace a credit card.
• canto 8mo ago
  GO BLIK! Go! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik
• fmajid 8mo ago
  Europe had a payment processor in Europay, the E in EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa), but stupidly allowed MasterCard to acquire it.
  • globular-toast 8mo ago
    Hilarious. Someone would have got a nice retirement out of that. It's amazing that some people have the power to sell a slice of the entire population's financial transactions for the next 25 years.
• unixhero 8mo ago
  I for one enjoy my cash back points with American Express. This is not a commercial.
  • hermanzegerman 8mo ago
    After paying 5% Commission to them in the overpriced stores that take it. Great Job, you played yourself
    • chrisjj 8mo ago
      Nope. Merchant pays.
      • hermanzegerman 8mo ago
        And who pays the merchant? I think you're this close to getting it...
        • chrisjj 8mo ago
          > And who pays the merchant? Card and cash users alike.
    • unixhero 8mo ago
      That is correct. And I get 10-30 000 usd in business class tickets per year for a fraction (only paying taxes) with companion tickets and bonus points to buy business tickets. It is an expensive hobby but totally worth it. I am also about to score life time golf status at one of the airlines. Yes thank you
    • timbit42 8mo ago
      If the store increases prices due to cash back cards, and I don't have a cash back card, then I'm losing. If I have a cash back card, then I'm losing less.
      • hermanzegerman 8mo ago
• ExoticPearTree 8mo ago
  A major win would be if this would be adopted at some point in the future outside of the EU. In Asia you can pay with Alipay in most countries. In South America you can pay QR codes via Mercado Pago (for example). Or at least make this new system interoperable with the more established players worldwide without the need for a Visa/Mastercard.
• mrits 8mo ago
  Once European banks realize how horrible EU is to do business with they will reunite with Visa
  • celsoazevedo 8mo ago
    European banks operating in EU countries, using Euros, and under the European Central Bank already know things work. Not to mention that some of the alternatives are owned by a consortium of... European banks.
    • mrits 8mo ago
      That is not true. EU members barely understand their own regulations and often out source to US firms for this.
• beambot 8mo ago
  Crypto gets a lot of hate... but this really puts its utility into perspective: No counterparty risk with random banks or foreign companies, near-instant settlement, vastly lower fees, immediate fx conversion.
• TrackerFF 8mo ago
  I'm guessing US will be fuming about this. One not-so-fun fact is that when the US sanctions anyone, their ability to transfer and use money via Visa etc. is taken away. In the modern world, being cut away from even using your debit card is a huge, massive hassle. It is one of the many different ways being sanctioned makes life more difficult. I can't imagine the US being too keen on giving up those powers.
• woodruffw 8mo ago
  > neither Visa nor Mastercard will sit idle while Europe tries to dismantle their most profitable market. Earnest question: is the EU really Visa and Mastercard's most profitable market? I would have expected it to be the US, both by customer volume numbers and in terms of regulatory environment (i.e. the US allowing payment processors to take a larger cut).
  • tuetuopay 8mo ago
    Speculation: Europe has a lower risk management cost than the US when it comes to card transactions, making it more profitable. Smartcards with PINs were ubiquitous much much sooner (it being a French idea did not help for US market penetration), which means today the magnetic stripe on our cards is little more than decoration. Seriously, I'm 29 and I've yet to see a single magstripe payment here (while it was daily when I went to the US). Also, we pretty much only have debit cards (don't know why, but don't know why I would want a credit card). This is even less risk for both the network and the merchant and the bank, reducing issues for all links in the chain. Or the fact that Europe has 100M extra people in it, and a lot of countries seldom use cash nowadays.
• littlecranky67 8mo ago
  Whenever people say Bitcoin has no usecase, this is exactly my usecase. Of course, only in conjunction with Lightning (a layer 2 solution building on Bitcoin with anonymity and instant transaction settlement). Censorship-free, no relying on third parties, free and open source software to make and receive payments. Yes, I know, bitcoin is too volatile. The reason that it is volatile, is because it has almost no adoption compared to the Euro. But lightning can also be used to transfer stable coins - i.e USDT works via bitcoin taproot asset management. Now I don't trust a El Salvador baed company and thus not USDT, but the EU could fix this by having a central bank issued stable coin pegged to the Euro. The entire software stack would be based around taproot asset management and lightning, done in the open by the people, for the people.
  • b65e8bee43c2ed0 8mo ago
    >Censorship-free and you think the EU would want that?
    • littlecranky67 8mo ago
      Good thing is, if we can live with the volatility, we the people, who want that, can have it. No matter what the EU wants.
  • deleted 8mo ago
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  • pyrolistical 8mo ago
    What about the fraud protection offered by credit cards?
    • littlecranky67 8mo ago
      What about it? Once you have a decentralized digital payment system (no matter if its Bitcoin, Lightning, Stablecoins) any corporate entity can offer trusted escrow services for online purchases. As in, merchant verification, chargebacks etc. No need for the government here.
• Pooge 8mo ago
  What about GNU Taler[1]? If we're doing that to have yet another monopoly, I don't see the point. Even if it's European. [1]: https://www.taler.net/en/ https://www.taler.net/en/
  • anigbrowl 8mo ago
    Is it backed with a large amount of money to hedge against the risk that the privacy or security could be flawed in some unexpected way? Are there people lobbying for its adoption at scale that can make cast-iron assurances about liability? Business people do not rely on technical proofs because they don't want to become cryptography.software engineering experts.
• tsoukase 8mo ago
  I am waiting for the multi-$24T breakup from any American tech. But I am not so optimistic and not sure if it will be $T, $B or $M.
• tug2024 8mo ago
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• mudil 8mo ago
  Visa stock is essentially unchanged in the last month, in the last three months.
• dude-800 8mo ago
  Trump is so crazy, it made Europe build alternatives to Visa and Mastercard. Unprecedented.
• punnerud 8mo ago
  “Has begun” as in recent? BankAxept has been in use in Norway since 1991 to avoid the VISA/Mastercard “tax” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankAxept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankAxept Biggest banks here refused to support Apple Pay and worked hard on legislations to open NFC access. Now we can pay with no fees to Visa/Mastercard or Apple even from our phones.
  • tremon 8mo ago
    There's implementations for this in most European countries (iDeal/Wero, Bizum, MultiBanco, BanContact have been mentioned). What's missing is a unified standard that works across all European webshops and banks.
• miki123211 8mo ago
  So I guess we'll have a system whose API is "open and interoperable", meaning "spread across 3000 pages of 5 ETSI TS PDfs that nobody can understand, with the only integration environment available after an expensive security audit, and requiring you to send an email to an email address that hasn't existed for the last 5 years." /s
• sharklasers123 8mo ago
  The use of a phone number rather than a username seems like a BIG downside. I’ve moved countries several times and as a result been forced to change my number several times. This causes a huge headache with any service that relies on phone numbers, especially two-factor etc. Phone numbers should be thought of as ephemeral while usernames can persist.
  • whompyjaw 8mo ago
    Ya i thought this as well… seems like a bad idea. I get that most ppl keep their phone number. Maybe better to let ppl just use their number than everyone creating an account? Idk.. But now i think of it… how does Visa and MC do it? Cuz i dont have a username or phone nber with them (i know they have my number). But i havent switched my number, so maybe if i did, i would have an issue?
• einpoklum 8mo ago
  > Creating a viable alternative to Visa and Mastercard requires “several billion euros” in investment Just the transaction processing fees going to VISA and Mastercard now would probably pay that back within a few years. Also, we're talking about all or almost-all European countries. So it doesn't sound like that much. > Low interchange fees under EU regulation make profitability difficult. Mandating that businesses which accept US credit cards must accept the European payment card would take care of that. Actually, maybe that's not necessary, it's probably enough to mandate that companies making card processing tech which supports US credit cards must also include support for this card; and businesses would just get it with their next system upgrade / terminal replacement or something. > Consumer habits are deeply entrenched I 'like' how people are described as "consumers", as though every payment is for consumption. Anyway, habits are not that deeply entrenched. Didn't people adopt those country-level payment cards? Don't people occasionally change credit cards? It's not even a change of tech, it's just yet another card. > and neither Visa nor Mastercard will sit idle while Europe tries to dismantle their most profitable market. Now this may be a significant factor... they could influence politicians, tech solutions makers (with sweetheart deals if they don't support the new payment tech, or whatever), they can get the US government to make some kind of threat (we've already seen the threat to invade Greenland). So, yeah, there's that.
• sajithdilshan 8mo ago
  Even if somehow EU is able to pull this off it would be a nightmare in terms of user experience. I live in Germany and this is how I would imagine it would work base on my experience in Germany. 1. You first need to install an app (because you want to use tap to pay) 2. Then you need to download another app to authenticate the first app 3. But to set up the 2nd app you need to wait for an actual physical mail which contains a code. 4. Then you set up the 2nd app, but then again it asks for you to do a KYC using your Id Card. 5. Now you need to download another app to do the KYC using your Id, but it asks for another code which you receive by physical mail when you got your Id years ago, but you have no idea where that mail or code is, now you have to request for another code and wait like 2 weeks till you get a physical mail with that code.... .... and the story goes on.
  • deleted 8mo ago
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  • lifestyleguru 8mo ago
    Then every app has to be always the latest version working only with the recent smartphone operating systems, of course the authentication is invalidated on app upgrade. They'll make sure to turn in into some insolvable hellish paradox.
  • tuetuopay 8mo ago
    You forgot the part where they send you two distinct snail mails, one with the username and one with a one-time password, for a double chance the post will lose one of the envelopes! Or the part where they silently truncate your new password to 6 digits because muh security. I guess France and Germany are siblings in kafkaesque administrative shenanigans.
    • lifestyleguru 8mo ago
      In Germany if they silently truncate your password and you contact their customer service, they will scream at you for not remembering your password. I guess this beats France.
• dyauspitr 8mo ago
  Trump has destroyed the US. I know it’s a generic comment but he has left us friendless, broke and eating ourselves.
• philipallstar 8mo ago
  Wirecard[0] round 2. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirecard_scandal
• h4kunamata 8mo ago
  2026 is really the year of USA going down in history. US dollar is collapsing, its stock is having a hard time, Europe is ditching US techs like Google and Microsoft and now this. Visa/Mastercard are the biggest evil. Why do you think Trump got pissed at Brazil having its own payment system without Visa/Mastercard network deleting billions in revenue from Visa/Mastercard The problem major problem is already mentioned: Each EU country wanna have their own independent system. Nothing prevent the countries from doing that but it must talk within the same payment network so people in the Netherlands can buy from Italy using their own payment system. Own payment system is different than payment network :)
• demiourgos 8mo ago
  "When Western sanctions cut Russia off from Visa and Mastercard in 2022, the country’s domestic payments were immediately disrupted." Lol. In reality this had 0(zero) effect on domestic payments. All Visa/Mastercard cards issued by Russian banks worked absolutely fine. Russia had built it's own payment system before war and just switched seemlessly.
• franksqqq 8mo ago
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• self_awareness 8mo ago
  Europe, just adopt Blik. Even Polish banks discourage using debit cards directly and just switch to Blik. Lost card? There's no card, so doesn't apply. ATM skimmers? Nope, I think all ATM support Blik, so can't sniff anything. Want to send money to a friend? Instant mobile-friendly transfer. It's even possible that the family can pull the cash out from the ATM from your account when you're in a different city if you'll give out the code.
  • mrsssnake 8mo ago
    Not anonymous even for small amounts of money. Without tricks and workarounds Blik apps requires Google/Apple approved smartphone with Google/Apple approved build of the OS logged into Google/Apple account. Participation in the network is tied to private will have Blik association even on small scale.
    • self_awareness 8mo ago
      I don't think having anonymous transactions is the goal for most people. For sure it's not the goal for Blik. The requirement of having a Google/Apple-cerified phone is a requirement of bank apps I think, not Blik's.
      • mrsssnake 8mo ago
        It does not matter on which layer the restrictions are applied here. Effect on society is the same - ability to pay only for those that give up on basic freedoms (which anonimity of payments and choice of device you carry are).
• maxdo 8mo ago
  all EU policies are joke, that's all you need to know. 23% of people in Poland, assembled luggage in case of war. Yet EU is still buying russian gas and oil. and they don't have permissions to military to pass through in case of help from country to country
• WhyNotHugo 8mo ago
  The irony is that this new payment method has the exact same issue: it's deeply tied to US corporate. Their site claims that it can only be used on iOS or Android: https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599074240401-What-devices-support-the-Wero-app https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599074240... Also: > It is not possible to use Wero via a web browser or on a computer. This seems an even worse situation than carrying around a Maestro (mastercard) with me.
  • codethief 8mo ago
    > it's deeply tied to US corporate. In what way specifically? Android and iOS are just the OS the banking apps that implement Wero happen to run on. There is nothing stopping them from releasing a Linux app. Or a web app.
    • globular-toast 8mo ago
      But they won't though, will they? Or maybe we can look forward to that in another 30 years when they realise they are, once again, dependent on American tech.
      • koonsolo 8mo ago
        You can't expect them to fix everything all at once. What about the hardware? Let them focus on offering a payment system, and let others focus on their thing.
  • padjo 8mo ago
    It is comical. Exchanging one set of US overlords for another. I suppose it is possible to use a degoogled android but most people won't be doing that.
    • arein3 8mo ago
      Not even that. Most banking apps have a requirement that android is "certified" by google, ex. They won't run on GrapheneOS
• dzonga 8mo ago
  the UK will be caught in the middle and lose out. Not part of US not part of EU either. what a losing proposition. if it can be a card network with fraud protections that visa offer -- this will easily overtake Visa, Mastercard Brazil with Pix have already proved this.
  • gib444 8mo ago
    > the UK will be caught in the middle and lose out. Not necessarily If we can have visa and MasterCard while not being part of the US, we can potentially take part in whatever the EU creates
• mmooss 8mo ago
  > a pan-European interoperable payment network covering 130 million users across 13 countries Why a subset of the EU and of Europe?
• ranguna 8mo ago
  Why would anyone use wero when the digital euro gets released? The article briefly touches this point but dismisses it saying wero and the digital euro complement each other, but doesn't go into detail on how. I see no point in a privately run digital currency when we can have a public one. I guess whichever has good privacy, reliability, ease of use and speed will win.
  • thijsr 8mo ago
    A digital euro is intended to the the digital equivalent of cash. It is issued directly by the central bank. Currently, consumers cannot have an account at the central bank. They have a balance at a commercial bank, and the commercial bank has an account at the central bank. Right now, you must have a private middleman to do any banking. The digital euro should offer a public alternative to that. (but it probably won't ever happen, because banks are lobbying against it with FUD campaigns, they feel like it threatens their existence) Wero is something completely different. It allows consumers to easily pay merchants, mostly online. The digital euro is not a payment network in the same sense as Visa, Mastercard, iDEAL and others.
    • ranguna 8mo ago
      Is it really not? https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/faqs/html/ecb.faq_digital_euro.en.html#q5 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/faqs/html/ecb.fa... It says they'll have offline transactions, if they have that, then you can probably make those "offline" transactions from Kms away from the receiver. We'll see how things evolve, I'm still not convinced that wero will have any use once the digital euro arrives.
• stuaxo 8mo ago
  Good. Now, what will happen in the UK.
• Curiositiy 8mo ago
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• lineral 8mo ago
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• chenmx 8mo ago
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• yieldcrv 8mo ago
  > to build a pan-European interoperable payment network covering 130 million users across 13 countries wow, so not even all of the European Union, not even all Eurozone countries, hmm I get their SEPA system but do they really not have a functioning credit network between consumers and merchants?
• _the_inflator 8mo ago
  We will see how it works out. I have a recent background as a member of the Senior Management of one of the largest banks in Europe (8 years stint). I worked in IT - and build the only successful platform for financial services done in-house and to ever make it as a standard not because management tried to force people, no because it solved customer's problem (external and internal customers aka employees). I don't buy any of these EU is going fully independently. EU's IT isn't capable of doing this. No way ever ever. I will 100% of the time bet against it. I saw so many things, experienced so many things - and no way is there anyone out there in Europe who to this day simply can acknowledge and appreciate the marvelous work and evolution that for example Google took or any other startup to leading global business like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and so on. Even IBM's mainframe: if you do not understand the very problem they solve - don't talk about "independence from X". There is no successful startup from Europe, that has any results like the mentioned. All have to do with IT, all went from idea to what they are now. And Europe now wants to do what? All my fellow European's here boasting around: I feel sorry for you. All the "Let's build our own Google" (Google search) folks that predated the other independence stories like this here simply disqualify themselves the moment the say out loud such sentences. Read 5 books about Engineering at Google, read the HTML5 spec by searching for Ian Hickson, go to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA - and tell me that EU is going well in IT independence in taking a totally different approach, ignoring every and any circumstance and context the mentioned companies had, using design by committee, state dictated orders, establishing standards by enforcing them by law instead of evolution and being the best there is. Good luck, we will see how it went. And no, building something that looks somewhat okish from the outside, but is utterly crap inside - we talk about, excuse me my corporate language I was penetrated with, "best in class world leading number one" apps that leave any comparable solutions in the dust - just as Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. did. If you cannot win in free markets - you declare victory by misusing regulation. That's cheap and well, socialism. All of you will beg that all the systems and providers will still do business with you after years of trashing them. Are Mastercard etc. awesome? Are they objectionable? Of course - but trashing them, boasting you will easily beat them while having the double standard on relying on them freely is disgusting. All EU patriots: Throw away your iPhones, deinstall all the US apps - use at least existing Open Source alternatives. Cancel your Netflix, Microsoft Office subscription - do it. Good luck anyway. After all, you are doing a live experiment on the head of the people forced to live with a minorities decision.
• sMarsIntruder 8mo ago
  Basically Europe solution to state/companies surveillance is an European managed surveillance, plus a CBDC to get even more into their citizens. Know your enemies, there are solutions out there.
• Giorgi 8mo ago
  Reads like Wero AI slop. Which it probably is.
• raffraffraff 8mo ago
  > Creating a viable alternative to Visa and Mastercard requires “several billion euros” in investment, according to EPI’s own estimates. Low interchange fees under EU regulation make profitability difficult. I think it's absolutely amazing that "crypto" (from bitcoins to shitcoins) have turned out to be no more useful as a currency than chips from the local casino. This has damaged their ability to function as a simple currency that can be used to pay for goods and services. And they have damaged the reputation of the whole distributed ledger technology to the point where, in 2026, banks aren't even considering implementing a closed circuit inter-bank distributed ledger as a way to send euro from one bank account to another. If the digital currency in this closed system was actual euro, there would be no reason to speculate on its value and turn the whole thing into a circus. I'm sure I'm missing something (a lot actually)
• ArchieScrivener 8mo ago
  How is this not the primary use case for a Blockchain? Of all the nonsense blockchains have been used for, this one actually makes sense. Just need a layer like Lightning with high throughput, and equally distribute network costs across the chain based on transaction amount, no?
  • thanksgiving 8mo ago
    If you need a lightning layer on top anyway, there is no reason to use block chain. It will be better for every single person and business to have an account directly with a European Union Central Bank.
  • vanviegen 8mo ago
    No. You'd add a lot of technical complexity, especially if you need this to be instant. You'd loose the ability to effectively fight fraud, and because of this get a huge target on your back attracting all sorts of unwanted behavior. On the other hand, you'd gain... nothing? Especially since consumers cannot be expected to run their own blockchain stack, they'd need to fully trust their banks and intermediaries anyhow.
• nottorp 8mo ago
  Item one, that has been mentioned a lot of times in this discussion, is that a payment system that is independent of Visa/MC but is dependent on US based smartphones is about as useless. Item two is convenience. All these systems are "faster wire transfers". I don't really see the point of them when you can already do instant IBAN or even phone number based transfers. What they do not have is a line of credit backing them. Got to make sure you have money in "the particular system your merchant accepts". Also at least in eastern europe credit cards come with the possibility to pay in a few installments with zero interest (paid for by the merchant of course, so not everyone does that). This is gone in the new system. What they also do not have is the fraud protection of a credit card. You may be able to revert a transaction but the money is gone from your account and it will take a long time to see it back. On the other hand it's harder to spend money you do not have so perhaps the EU is trying to make its citizens more financially responsible? :)
  • juliangmp 8mo ago
    I never understood the credit card thing Why would I want to spend money on loan by default? Why do the Americans do that all the time? What's the benefit?
    • pnt12 8mo ago
      The benefit is to the banks, making huge money this way!
    • nottorp 8mo ago
      Because it’s not my money but the banks money :) Of course it only works to your advantage if you pay your credit cards in full every month.
    • johanyc 8mo ago
      For consumers, the risk of fraud is bear by the bank, not you, because you're spending the bank's money instead of yours. For banks, they make money through interests from the customers that don't pay off the bill each month.
• stubish 8mo ago
  I don't see an alternative to Visa and Mastercard being discussed in the article. I just see ways of making bank transfers easier. Banks generally don't provide ways to dispute transactions, which is why fraudsters generally use bank transfer mechanisms. Once your money leaves your account, it is possibly gone, and once it leaves the country it is definitely gone. Banks here are now inserting delays on transfers in an attempt to combat the problem. Without a consumer focused and consumer friendly way of disputing transactions, consumers will keep using Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.
  • hocuspocus 8mo ago
    Existing mobile wallets in Europe and beyond are absolutely eating into the market share of Visa and MC. Fraudulent transactions aren't that common since SCA became mandatory. Getting a chargeback in Europe is not trivial, this will change nothing to most consumers.
  • jeromechoo 8mo ago
    This is an American-centric POV. I can’t speak for Europe but in many parts of Asia payments are most commonly done as a transfer of digital cash rather than credit. Whether it’s “consumer friendly” is not particularly relevant. People already accept it as a way to transact and there’s very little reason to switch to credit cards.
    • stubish 8mo ago
      Over here in Australia, it is mostly Visa and Mastercard debit cards in use (credit cards are available, but expensive and no longer popular). Your money still disappears from your account immediately, but you still can get a refund when using a payment network. Whereas a bank gets to say 'can't help, contact the vendor'. I suspect this is a result of how our consumer protection laws are setup, as the payment network takes on certain legal responsibilities when they accept my cash, even it they then just pass most of it on to the actual vendor. I guess that can work here, as until eCommerce arrived you were rarely making a payment over an international border.
• utopiah 8mo ago
  No mention of GNU Taler (cf https://www.taler.net https://www.taler.net ) which is a bit of shame, especially knowing that "The NGI TALER project is funded under Horizon Europe (Pilots for the Next Generation Internet) with the aim of bringing GNU Taler to market across Europe." cf https://www.taler.net/en/ngi-taler.html https://www.taler.net/en/ngi-taler.html
• thepancake 8mo ago
  One of their job ads (https://careers.epicompany.eu/jobs/7187954-backend-engineer-apps-team-remote-first https://careers.epicompany.eu/jobs/7187954-backend-engineer-...) lists AWS among the tech stack, which you just gotta love considering that the whole project is about moving away from US infrastructure.
  • nolok 8mo ago
    You either wait until you can do it all at once and never do anything, or you make progress step by step. As an european, I'm for all the european tech stack funding projects going on, but I'm also glad we move on these other issues without waiting forever.
• pnt12 8mo ago
  "Consumer habits are deeply entrenched". I disagree. In Portugal, MB Way arrived, allowing people to use their phone to send money to each other, or pay in terminals, and it was widely adopted. People want ease of use and low fees, not to keep their credit cards. With this being said, the Digital Euro has more potential.
  • neor 8mo ago
    Ease of use, and a bit of customer protection. Living in the Netherlands iDeal is perfect for online shopping, but once the money is gone there is no way to get it back. With Visa/Mastercard there is a level of protection available which leaves the door open to get your money back if you are being scammed. I believe Wero is going to implement this as well, so time will tell but I think any move to break the duopoly of Visa/Mastercard is good for consumers.
• egorfine 8mo ago
  I hope we can finish Environmental Impact Study, Data Protection Impact Assessments and perform State aid notification to the European Commission within my lifetime which would be a breathtaking speed.
• rjakobsson 8mo ago
  Bitcoin. Swish (Sweden) sees quite a lot of downtime. Why not settle for something that doesn't have these inherent issues that closed, proprietary systems have?
  • cbsmith 8mo ago
    Because then you have the inherent issues that come from open, federated systems. ;-)
  • malthaus 8mo ago
    so something that is a horrible store of value, has monumental transaction fees, non-instant confirmation and is associated by laypersons mostly with speculation, fraud & illegal transactions will solve those?
    • phasnox 8mo ago
      You just described fiat. Terrible store of value(worse than bitcoin) Horrible International transaction fees(swift much worse than bitcoin) Most money laundering and criminal activities happen in the current banking system.
      • anigbrowl 8mo ago
        That's just a deflection, and a great example of how to slow down crypto adoption.
• IvanK_net 8mo ago
  It should be enough to make it mandatory for banks to let people send money to each other for free, even abroad (within the EU). Then, at the shop, you can simply pay by making a bank transaction through the internet banking (which can be a phone app, a website, etc). The payment details (account number of the receiver, the amount, etc) can be transferred through NFC or a QR code. Money would go directly bank-to-bank, nothing in the middle.
  • carlosjobim 8mo ago
    What is the benefit for the customer? This idea seems to only give minor benefits to businesses and no benefits for customers.
• artk42 8mo ago
  > A coalition of 16 banks thinks it has the answer. Oh! That's exactly what we all needed - 16 banks suggest their own "system", even more crude and clumsy imitation of the surveillance standards of payment systems and marketplaces, which shielded banks from snitching clients' consumption patterns. They don't need anything advanced like Apple Pay layered tokenizations that at least respects a little of privacy. Everything is linked to a single phone (the article states that the focus is on Bizum and those pathetic peer-to-peer payment systems). The banks are in good shape to capture data, the tax authorities have a clear picture of how to squeeze the plebs even more - nice. How about stablecoins with native yield from ECB treasuries? It solves everything and costs nothing. But we see what happens in US - "treasuries spread is not for plebs", - banks say.
• StingyJelly 8mo ago
  This is about control, not sovereignty. I hate having to use visa or mastercard when better options exist but the solution is to allow competitive solutions and make surcharge mandatory so customers bear the cost of their payment choices. In the begining of this year, they basicly banned EU merchants from using confirmo (crypto payment gateway), when it was finally getting traction.
• TimByte 8mo ago
  Europe finally realizing that payments infrastructure is geopolitical infrastructure
• wartywhoa23 8mo ago
  Think Global, Act Local
• heraldgeezer 8mo ago
  Good to begin now , but again, we have been so naive and comfy. We rode on USA infra for too long. Europe is full of "managers". When China and Russia have their own pay systems, why not EU?
• yalogin 8mo ago
  Whether this particular attempt is really the disconnect or not , it doesn’t matter. The train has left the station this time and they are going to replace the visa/mastercard duopoly. India and China proved it’s absolutely doable, the administration just pushed Europe down this path.
  • abc123abc123 8mo ago
    Switzerland and denmark have proven it is possible. An interesting challenge will be to see if these national systems can be integrated somehow. If so, problem solved.
    • yalogin 8mo ago
      If they are serious, they should replace every local system with one new, well thought out solution spanning across Europe. It should not be just a replacement for Europe but compete with visa all over the world. If done right this will be more attractive to the world than the monopoly and authoritarian regime based implementation that is visa/mastercard
• RajT88 8mo ago
  Using a US debit card in France will continue to be awful.
• casey2 8mo ago
  "Fraud" has become a major political weapon since "Operation Chokepoint" and earlier (check wikileaks) If the government is going to act irrationally and (through visa/mc) prevent legitimate transactions then people will just deal with fraud. Even if Europeans agree with the DLsite ban they see the writing on the wall for European eCommerce sites.
• manzu 8mo ago
  with Apple Pay no data goes to America, it's straight to your bank for auth, i believe it also bypasses mastercard/visa, no?
• okr 8mo ago
  Competition is good. Will it be accepted in hotels abroad? Can i withdraw cash at ATM abroad? Can i add it as a card to my Google wallet? Usually banks app are nightmare. Pins everywhere, extra passwords. MFA not with my dongle.... Sigh. Seriously, I have had no issues with visa or mastercard. This euro-nationalism is odd to me.
• trizuz 8mo ago
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• ksec 8mo ago
  > The Problem No One Thinks About > Well, either the US or China.” > The host’s response — “I didn’t realise this” — captured the broader European blind spot. People have been firing warning shorts for years. It is not a blind spot. It is just being ignored.
• janlucien 8mo ago
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