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

europeanbusinessmagazine.com

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

#171
post #69
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India built RuPay, China built UnionPay. There's no reason why Europe can't do the same.

The most obvious difference being that unlike China or India, Europe (or the EU) is not a single country. This doesn't make things impossible but certainly complicates them.

The sensible thing would be to do it by currency area - e.g. the Eurozone.

Technology and some systems could be shared.

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

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little shocked that of all the comments so far, no one has mentioned the financial risk borne by this whole value chain. OP is operating as if it's just a debit system moving money from one account to another but: - For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for -- credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk i…

There are many countries where debit cards are the norm and credit cards are extremely rare. In France, people are so afraid of consumer credit that cards are renamed ‘deferred debit cards’ rather than credit cards, otherwise people do not want them.

Debit cards come with the same fraud protection as credit cards do, which is the most important benefit of Visa/MasterCard.

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

#173

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…

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.

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

#174
post #166

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 the…

I use my credit and debit cards the same way today as I did before smartphones existed. I never invited the extra surveillance middleman of Google/Apple into my transactions. And the convenience of tapping or swiping a plastic card is simpler than using my phone anyway. Is this not possible in Spain?

I put my debit card in my smartphone case. Best of both worlds.

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

#175

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 entiti…

I'm a little shocked that of all the comments so far, no one has mentioned the financial risk borne by this whole value chain. OP is operating as if it's just a debit system moving money from one account to another but: - For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for -- credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk i…

That's all the bank's problem, not the network's.

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

#176
post #164

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 the…

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.

Show me a german webshop that supports modern payment methods. It usually old school bank transfers still.

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

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

How do you do your groceries with that?

With debit cards or cash like everyone else?

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

#178

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 the…

> Whatever they come up with, I hope it doesn't tie you to a Google or Apple smartphone.

Even if it does, Google won't be taking a cut from it.

Also, it's then much easier to provide a mobile web version, or something else.

My country's internal system also sells a bracelet for contactless payments, and there are obviously payment cards.

Once there's a mandatory standard, it's much more likely competition will show up. EU wide SWIFT, direct debits, instant transfers, all show this.

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

#179
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.

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

#180
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little shocked that of all the comments so far, no one has mentioned the financial risk borne by this whole value chain. OP is operating as if it's just a debit system moving money from one account to another but: - For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for -- credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk i…

> For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for This is a uniquely American viewpoint. In most of Europe you don't buy anything on credit ever.

Most places outside the USA actually. A liability is someone else's asset, and everyone wants USA assets, so the USA needs to generate a lot of liabilities.
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