Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

finance.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 386 posts

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#141

Post by lxgr »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #74
mothballed wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with fraud and people cleaning out your bank account money rather than OPM of a credit card company? Just have enough spare cash for a burner checking account and wait for the fraud reversal? In the US you'll almost always get your money back if someone defrauds your debit card but you could be in for a painful time if you depend on the money in that checking account until it gets fixed.

Banks suck it up, but fraud is likely a lot less prevalent because 3D Secure is mandatory for online transactions and chip and PIN were ubiquitous way before the US seemed to have started using it.

The US still hasn't started using PINs for all credit and most debit transactions, and at this point it doesn't look like it ever will.

Apple and Google Pay are just as (if not more) secure anyway for the majority of transactions, and a long tail of US restaurants, hotels, corporate card issuers, rental car agencies etc. will simply never change their legacy flows. There are just too many incumbent stakeholders.

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#142

Post by preisschild »

izacus wrote: post #101
cloudengineer94 wrote: post #64

Reminder to the people reading this thread and overall comments, that in Europe everyone uses Debit Cards instead of Credit Cards. Credit Card in Europe is very much associated with Debt.

Yep, although a huge % of banks are issuing Visa and MasterCard debit cards as default nowadays.

Yes. Most people here (Austria) use their mastercard debit card to pay cashless. You get them at 14 already IIRC.

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#143

Post by ZekeSulastin »

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #128
cloudengineer94 wrote: post #64

Reminder to the people reading this thread and overall comments, that in Europe everyone uses Debit Cards instead of Credit Cards. Credit Card in Europe is very much associated with Debt.

Eu: Most of the people I know use debit rather than credit because we can manage our finances.

How exactly does “we can manage our finances” follow from picking debit over credit?

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#144

Post by lxgr »

izacus wrote: post #104
mothballed wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with fraud and people cleaning out your bank account money rather than OPM of a credit card company? Just have enough spare cash for a burner checking account and wait for the fraud reversal? In the US you'll almost always get your money back if someone defrauds your debit card but you could be in for a painful time if you depend on the money in that checking account until it gets fixed.

The only place I (as an EU citizen) ever came in contact with direct fraud was in... US. It's not much of an issue within the EU area. The banks tend to offer insurance products for people who want to cover that risk.

These insurances are the greatest sales trick of all time: Banks selling you something they're legally required to provide for free already.

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#145

Post by __rito__ »

izacus wrote: post #106
__rito__ wrote: post #95

Can someone tell me why the EU doesn’t develop something like RuPay? Indian UPI gets mentioned a lot, but when Visa, Mastercard didn't agree with data sovereignty rules among other rules, India quickly developed RuPay [0]. Now most debit cards in India are RuPay. CCs stand at 18% share. They also integrate seamlessly to UPI. Why doesn’t the EU consider something like that? They want to jump direct to digital currenci…

This is literally what the article is about - Digital Euro and Wero are two competing solutions that are debated right now.

Wero isn’t a physical card if I am getting this right.

RuPay is.

You get a physical cc/dc with RuPay as provider instead of MC/Visa.

If I am not missing something, Wero is not that.

That is what I wanted to know: why not a traditional, homegrown card that is a direct 1-to-1 alternative of MC/Visa cards? Does that not make sense for the EU now? Why?

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#146

Post by omnimus »

stackghost wrote: post #28

This is interesting and poignant less because of the digital currency aspect and more because of the geopolitics. In a world where technology touches everything, tech itself becomes political. The boulder that is de-Americanization has rolled too far downhill now and gained too much momentum; it can no longer be stopped. The two thirds of Americans who either voted for Trump or couldn't be bothered to vote against hi…

Don't underestimate how much in bed are many of the european politicians/oligarchs with US neocon class. Trump is also problem for them. If Trump gets replaced by some moderate neocon on wave of “good old times” every one of these lobbied politicians will jump back hail comming of the golden age, buy everything american again and delete all this sovereignity out of the sky.

Trump moved overton window so much we will be fed story about how we shall be glad for the corrupted but not vulgar politicians that do barely minimum.

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#147

Post by calgoo »

Muromec wrote: post #115
lotsofpulp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article uses the term credit card for apparently no reason, because Visa and Mastercard also support debit cards. The EU is probably more concerned about Visa and Mastercard payment networks being under the control of American leaders.

We call every card a credit card even if most of them are actually debit.

we dont in spain, we call it "tarjeta de debito" and "tarjeta de credito" or just "la tarjeta" or the card.

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#148

Post by lxgr »

__rito__ wrote: post #135
toomuchtodo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are, it’s called Wero. It is a stopgap, and sits on top of SEPA. Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48207004 - May 2026 (777 comments) Wero – Digital payment wallet, made in Europe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038965 - February 2026 (132 comments) Europe's Banks Launch Wero Payments to Dislodge Visa, Mastercard - https://n…

Is Wero something you can hold in your hands? RuPay is just like Visa/Mastercard in the sense you get physical cards that you can use at ATMs, use at ecomm sites, etc. Wero doesn’t seem to be that. Am I missing something? Does making a new direct alternative to Visa/MC doesn’t make sense for the EU? If so, why?

Cards (as implemented in the US at least, i.e., with individual purchases not confirmed by the cardholder) are a relic of a different time in many ways.

If you're building out a brand new system, why not make use of the computing device with input/output capabilities (that can be used to confirm amount, payee etc.) almost everybody already has in their pocket/purse anyway and instead rely on merchants being honest and only taking what they're owed out of your account without your confirmation?

Of course physical cards will also play some role in any future EU payment system, if for nothing other than resiliency (a card works without any battery and is cheap to keep in a drawer or suitcase as a backup for a stolen phone) and sovereignty (note who makes most phones' operating systems and runs their attestation providers).

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#149

Post by nswango »

retired wrote: post #100
cloudengineer94 wrote: post #64

Reminder to the people reading this thread and overall comments, that in Europe everyone uses Debit Cards instead of Credit Cards. Credit Card in Europe is very much associated with Debt.

And most Europeans that have a credit-card need to pay them off at the end of the month. Technically they are charge cards. Unlike a traditional credit card, a charge card does not allow you to carry a revolving balance.

This is not true. Plenty of Europeans have credit cards which work exactly like US credit cards.

The main difference between credit cards in Europe and in the US is that poor people can't get them here.

Re: Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards

#150

Post by megaman821 »

lxgr wrote: post #120
freediddy wrote: post #23

How does digital euro replace credit cards? That's basically the same as direct debit. It doesn't address the reason why I use credit cards. I use credit cards as a proxy for my bank accounts. I know that my issuing bank will protect me from all fraud so I don't have to worry about losing money if I buy something from a fraudulent merchant. I also know I can do things like chargebacks if I have to. None of this is ad…

So you're really using credit cards as a proxy for a consumer-friendly (at least with regard to fraud/disputes) payments product. Credit cards being more consumer friendly than bank transfers is usually an artifact of the concrete implementation, not the abstract concept. In many EU/SEPA countries, returning a direct debit is much easier than a chargeback in the US, for example. In some countries, people even conside…

It's not just the chargeback process; it is that fraud actually removes money your account potentially causing other payments, like your mortgage, to default. With a credit card you have a month to get things straightened out before a payment is due.
Post reply on HN