Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your best example of European integration is electric plugs?
Money transfers between bank accounts for no extra fees (well, that's limited to the Euro, so a couple of countries chose to stay outside). Mobile phone usage for no extra fees all over EU (some limitations, but typically not relevant for the average trip). B2B the integration has even bigger impact. I don't think eletric plugs are even regulated. British plugs never changed and they were not an argument in Brexit.
Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
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Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#742Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would never buy a plane ticket on debit. Airbnb reservations I also tend to do on credit. Anything related to company expenses I also do on credit and receive reimbursement prior to having to pay it myself.
It's just now how it works in most of Europe. I've lived in four countries, had accounts with lots of banks, paid for countless plane tickets and booking reservations, and only had a credit card once when I was issued one at work. I don't expect I'd ever get a personal one, and can't think of anyone that regularly uses one. The only time I even considered it was to build a credit score in the UK to eventually apply f…
There are also official debt registries, where you (and prospective lenders) can look up how much debt you have.
A bit different than the credit score concept.
Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#743Item 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…
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?
Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#744Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#745Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a problem? Americans keep saying that China has no combat experience and its weapons have not been proven in actual combat. Is there any doubt that a country that hasn't fought a war in decades is more popular than countries like the US and Russia, which are constantly at war?
I'm an advocate for the US withdrawing from NATO so we don't have to fight so many wars. I'm an isolationist, and I advocate a non-imperialist, Swiss-style foreign policy for the US. If you'll join me in that advocacy, then good.
Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#746Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's probably a little bit harder than you think with all the rules and regulations out there. I would highly encourage anybody who's remotely interested, listen to the Acquired podcast episode regarding Visa. It's actually quite fascinating how it was started. You may balk at the length, but the whole thing had me interested. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/visa
In the Netherlands, before VISA, there already was a national debit card standard called PIN [1]. Sure, times have changed and it's probably not super easy, but it's also not going to be super hard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIN_(debit_card)
Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#747Earlier 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.
Carrying this device is the key here. Eventually we all need to carry it around, track us everywhere.
Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> You can get a prepaid SIM from a grocery store and register it with them After you provide your gov ID https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-regist... So now this phone number is tied to your gov ID and bank account, amazing design of a single point of failure based on a broken protocol (GSM).
I could get it without an ID and my (EU member) country is painted green/blue on those maps in your source. I always love it when people from abroad try to tell me how things work in my country, when they clearly have no idea.
Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun
#749Why 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.
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…
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.