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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

#671

Post by self_awareness »

mrsssnake wrote: post #519
self_awareness wrote: post #513

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'…

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.

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.

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

#672

Post by kassner »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #648
severino wrote: post #135

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…

They should just do on the lines of what India has been doing with UPI and Brazil with Pix. Both massively successful at this point. Of course take their good parts. By the way, since you wondered, it seems to be > built around the digital wallet Wero and wikipedia says its a mobile payments method. I hope not. I hope it's rather an interface/spec. (On a side note, I also hope individual countries of EU ensure that t…

> Brazil with Pix

Are you aware of any banks that don’t require you to use their Android/iOS app to use PIX? I’ve had accesss to maybe a dozen banks and none had that ability. Sometimes you get via web, but needs their app’s 2FA to log in.

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

#673

Post by raffraffraff »

> 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)

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

#674

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

severino wrote: post #135

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…

UPI in India if I remember correctly can actually work even offline by either sms/calling functionality even on dumb phones

Pasting this ddg-ai thing but I think its called UPI 123PAY

UPI 123PAY allows users to make digital payments using feature phones without needing a smartphone or internet connection. Users can set up a UPI ID by dialing *99# and can make payments through methods like IVR calls, missed calls, or sound-based technology.

https://razorpay.com/blog/what-is-upi-123-pay/

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

#675

Post by anon7000 »

ericmay wrote: post #306
SomeUserName432 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vendors you'd pay with Pix in brazil are typically the vendors who may not even accept cards at all, it's pix or cash. (Although you CAN pay with pix at many supermarkets, I'd rate it as rare. Also useable for online payments, but you take the risk in case of fraud, unlike with creditcards)

Thanks for the information, reminds me of CashApp or something like that in the US. But just to be clear the context was, at least as I understood, moving to using an app instead of using existing credit card rails via Visa and Mastercard and that's just not going to happen because it's a worse experience (in Europe). If you don't have the ability to accept a card at all, that's a different use case.

I mean it’s an obvious decision to not accept cards if you can avoid it. You’re letting a company like Amex siphon up to 3% of your income away in perpetuity.

Business owners are forced to accept this situation because customers have your expectation. But it’s really not a good situation we’ve ended up in, letting for-profit, uncompetitive companies skim off the top of consumer spending. It’s frankly a rip-off.

Tap to pay could literally just come from your bank’s app.

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

#676

Post by citrin_ru »

buzer wrote: post #419
joe_mamba wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, ICC judges lost access to their O365 work email accounts. Worst the US can do to me is turn off my Steam, and Gmail but I can easily live without those. Now imagine being debanked by your own government because they don't like what you're saying and becoming unemployed, homeless and dead. I don't think they're remotely comparable. For example, a few years ago, a power tripping gov bureaucrat turned off my unemp…

According to AP News ( https://apnews.com/article/international-court-sanctions-tru... ) at least one judge had his bank accounts closed. So it's not just your own government who can debank you in Europe. Of course in this judge's case there might still be some banks who are willing to work with him even at the risk of getting sanctioned as there weren't language in the news that he was completely debanked which I as…

The main problem IMHO that a bank access not seen as a right. Even Russia which is neither powerful (unlike the US) nor an EU ally can de-bank Russian critics living in the EU (and other places) by reporting them to FATF. AML is ripe for abuse.

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

#677

Post by input_sh »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #50
hirako2000 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not in EU. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/fees-for-... > Specifically, the regulation: > caps interchange fees at 0.2% of the transaction value for consumer debit cards and at 0.3% for consumer credit cards;

Key term in that sentence is consumer. As in that's not the cap for businesses.

You need to look at both sides of the transaction to figure out the total.

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

#678

Post by ArchieScrivener »

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?

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

#679

Post by littlecranky67 »

anticodon wrote: post #666
littlecranky67 wrote: post #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 adopti…

Crypto was and is inconvenient to use. So many years passed and almost nobody uses crypto daily. It's too inconvenient. And it's not secure or anonymous at all. At some point you need to buy crypto or sell crypto, or buy some goods with crypto, and at that point you can be easily identified. Happened so many times. Even here in Russia, under all US sanctions, only a few use crypto. It's so inconvenient that even unde…

I would agree that no one uses it - but not out of convenience. It is an adoption problem, no one accepts lightning payments because no one has lightning balance. If you download a modern, non-custodial wallet such as Phoenix or Wallet of Satoshi, it is easier than paypal or my online banking website. It sure as hell is easier than opening any online bank account (Wise, Revolut etc.) as there is no kyc.

Regarding anonimity when exchanging, yes. But you can make the same point about cash. You are identified when withdrawing, and identified when depositing. You cannot be identified when cash changes owners, and the same holds true for lightning payments. So if anonimity is the same, lightning is still to be considered superior as it works also for online payments while cash is bound to physical means of payments.

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

#680

Post by supermatt »

Cyph0n wrote: post #396
Archelaos wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The odds are very low. It all depents on the people. So far, the European citizens are very privacy senstive. The European institutions are characterized by a huge devision of power. There is no chance that European instutitions can impose their will against a considerable majority of people. If people turn away from liberal democracy, that's another matter. But then everything is lost anyway.

> So far, the European citizens are very privacy senstive. In some areas, sure - like GDPR. In other areas, absolutely not - like chat control. As another commenter pointed out, it seems as if government mandated privacy intrusion is OK, while violations by corporations are quickly shutdown. It’s like the opposite of how it works here in the US.

> like chat control.

That has never been passed in any form.

> the opposite of how it works here in the US.

It appears that you have conveniently forgotten about FISA, EARN IT, CLOUD act, PATRIOT act, LAED, etc, etc.

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