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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

#501

Post by eastbayjake »

avianlyric wrote: post #459
eastbayjake wrote: post #97

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…

None of what you’ve mentioned has anything to do with Visa and Mastercard. Visa and Mastercard are just payment networks, their whole business is literally just transporting transaction information from payment terminals to banks and payment processors, plus keeping track of all the numbers (which is pretty important). Payment networks don’t provide credit or any kind of liquidity whatsoever, that entirely provided b…

I replied downthread but I used "value chain" deliberately -- there are lots of intermediaries of which the card networks are just one link in the chain -- and the statement above is about risk being borne (and value being created for consumers) by the entire value chain that is different and difficult/impossible in a FedNow-style immediate settlement model: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46964968

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

#503

Post by Spooky23 »

carlosjobim wrote: post #247
alistairSH wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just by their nature, that is inherently untrue. If your CC is stolen, you are not out all the cash in your account until the dispute is resolved. If your debit card is stolen, you lose that cash, making it more difficult to pay whatever other obligations you have that period.

If your debit card is stolen, your bank has to return all money that was used or withdrawn to you. Since it is unauthorized use of your funds. Same for credit cards of course. Such money is returned swiftly. But the more concerning fraud is when you purchase something and don't receive what you should have received from the merchant. Whether it is due to outright fraud or not. In these cases you will also have your m…

The protections aren't quite the same with merchant issues. Notably, most situations that you attempt in good faith to resolve, purchased within 100 miles of your home are protected for credit cards.

But even if it were - most people operate one checking account, and most folks don't keep an especially large balance. If your debit card gets compromised or there is an erroneous charge, it will process up to your balance. It is incumbent on you to notice the fraud and take action. If the bad dip is today, and tomorrow morning my mortgage and other payments bounce or hit overdraft, I have a mess to clean up.

With a credit card, you're typically hitting a larger credit line that isn't fully utilize -- you may not notice the bad charge for a month, but there's no impact to you... the thief stole the bank's money.

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

#504

Post by prmoustache »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #248
clawlrbot wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What does Belgium's capital has to do with this? Do you imply Brussels = European Union?

It is called a metonymy where you substitute a name that is associated to some other thing instead of mentionning that thing.

Some examples: Wall Street = NY Stock Exchange the White House = US president and his cabinet the Pentagon = US Dept of Defense Downing Street = UK prime minister

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy Scotland Yard = Greater London Metropolitan Police Tehran = Government/officials of the islamic republic of Iran

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

#505

Post by eastbayjake »

KaiserPro wrote: post #359
eastbayjake wrote: post #97

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…

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…

I'm not mixing -- if I have $0 in my bank account today and I don't get paid until Friday, I cannot buy food today with a debit card. Being able to buy things today on the promise of future cash flows is a risk-based financial product and risk comes with premiums. (Again: could you solve this problem by having more money in your account? Sure! But there are a lot of downstream consequences of every consumer and business in society operating that way and there are real trade-offs that should be discussed with more nuance than "monopoly hoard ledger boo")

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

#506

Post by elektronika »

nosianu wrote: post #398
pimterry wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I don't know about Huawei, but actually most (all?) of the banking apps in Spain should work on a non-Google-certified Android builds. There's an community list tracking GrapheneOS compatibility at https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa…

GrapheneOS in Spain? https://www.androidauthority.com/why-i-use-grapheneos-on-pix... > Police in Spain have reportedly started profiling people based on their phones; specifically, and surprisingly, those carrying Google Pixel devices. Law enforcement officials in Catalonia say they associate Pixels with crime because drug traffickers are increasingly turning to these phones. But it’s not Google’s secure Titan M2 chi…

Really makes you think when petty criminals use privacy tech while billionaire pedophiles run their dealings through gmail.

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

#507

Post by JackSlateur »

graemep wrote: post #194
jimnotgym wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buying a bottle of Calvados in some remote area? Yea just tap to pay with your Mastercard. Hard disagree. Until Covid, many small shops didn't take cards in Europe. Taxis, restaurants, market stalls, even trains were often cash only not that long ago. I in the UK ran accounts in companies that had people travel extensively in Europe. We used to issue travellers with EUR200 for the things that cards couldn't buy. Mo…

Its not just American tourists. Its everyone from everywhere. If you do not accept Visa and Mastercard you are not going to accept payments from all sorts of travellers (tourists, business people, people from your own country living abroad) either. > I guarantee there are a large number of people in rural Europe that would be very happy never to meet another American tourist, even if it costs them. Xenophobic or anti…

But these tourists can be rerouted to visa or mastercard transparently

It works at the moment, here in France, with Swile (for instance)

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

#508

Post by prmoustache »

ericmay wrote: post #45
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #8

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…

> 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. I don't know that the problem is sophisticated, but it's certainly complex [1]. It's a bit of both in terms of complexity and defending a moat, which all businesses do, including, and especially European ones. And companies like Visa, Mastercard, Ame…

> And companies like Visa, Mastercard, American Express, &c. arose initially from solving a real need. Before these companies came into existence when you traveled you'd have to take cash, or traveler's checks or some other nonsense. Today you can, at least as an American, just walk in to the subway in just about any country and tap to pay. Need a coffee at Mt. Fuji? Easy. Buying a bottle of Calvados in some remote area? Yea just tap to pay with your Mastercard.

The reality is more complicated.

I have had Visa or Mastercard being refused in other countries by some retail outlets / institutions.

In fact I never travel with only one card from a single bank because I always want to have a backup. And it is not really Visa vs Mastercard because I have had occurences of having 2 Visas, one of which would work and another would not on a specific shop for no obvious nor documented reason.

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

#509

Post by prmoustache »

tzs wrote: post #94

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.

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.

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

#510

Post by tagyro »

leokennis wrote: post #403
HunOL wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 promotion…

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.

not really

Wero acquired iDeal and integrated it (as well as Payconiq)

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