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

europeanbusinessmagazine.com

351–360 of 1001 posts

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

#351
post #19
post #5

So Wero is not a credit card, but something more like Venmo? How is it supposed to replace Visa and Mastercard?

> So Wero is not a credit card Neither are visa/MC for the most part. Mostly debit. ;) this isn’t really about the card anyway but the network behind it. This is likely to be similar to the existing European payment systems just wider in scope. There are a bunch already it’s just fragmented and country specific. Sepa wero ideal girocard crates bancaires

I have always wondered what kind of shenanigans Mastercard or Visa did to convince so many banks to use their networks for debit cards.

When did banks actually make that switch?

It must be relatively recent, because I remember not that long ago my credit union ATM card was not part of Mastercard. Now I have a new one and it suddenly has a Mastercard logo.

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

#352
post #20

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.

the eu should try innovating and building a massive global business. seems to be very difficult for you guys

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

#353
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.

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

#354
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SEPA would be a decent solution with instant QR code generation and app payments, but the transfer fees are ludicrous for daily use (~1-2€ per wire). Or maybe it's just my bank being greedy fucks as usual.

It is your bank, I don't pay for transfers.

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

#355

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 adopti…

>Censorship-free

and you think the EU would want that?

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

#356

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 adopti…

[deleted]

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

#357

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…

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.

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

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really a human right issue. No one should be required to carry an attacker-controlled tracking device, especially not for interacting with the government. It's funny that the EU uses all this mobile attestation BS more than the US does. So much for sovereignty and consumer protection. No monopoly Google can build is as good as the government forcing you to accept their terms.

>No one should be required to carry an attacker-controlled tracking device What about being required to carry a your-own-government-controlled tracking device? Because the US or Chine government can't harm me in Europe via the data they collect from me, But the EU authorities can if they want to, so naturally I fear them more if they were the ones hoovering my data. What are the odds they're using this on-shore tech…

Tracking device might be the wrong thing to focus on. The US has other ways of messing with foreigners who depend on services provided by US companies, like suddenly cutting off those services in the case of ICC judges.

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

#359

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…

You're mixing debit and credit cards.

In the EU, debit cards are pretty common, and largely its a network effect. You need to get terminals that are supported by your payment provider.

A lot of merchant terminals are provided by banks, and frankly they are itching to get a sweet sweet cut of each transaction. Not only the information, but the cut of each transaction. Something like 0.2-1.5% of each transaction. (I'm sure mastercard and visa give them a cut)

For Credit cards, the banks/operator already handle most of the risk, and then pay visa a percentage for the privilege of charging usury like rates

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

#360

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 adopti…

>Censorship-free and you think the EU would want that ?

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.
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