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

321–330 of 386 posts

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

#321

Post by IncreasePosts »

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.

If you can manage your finances then delaying all purchase payments by 30 days for 0% interest is a no brainer. And then all the other perks that come with some cards, like accruing some small percentage of your transactions as points, extended warranty protection, ability to request charge backs if necessary, etc.

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

#322

Post by blitzar »

rsynnott wrote: post #310
__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…

If you were starting from scratch today, though, would you really re-invent credit cards? There was at some point I think a vague plan for a European debit card network (at least one of the national debit card network actually supports foreign issuers on a technical level, though I don't think in practice this was ever implemented), but really, why use the card format, beyond "well, this is already a thing"?

> would you really re-invent credit cards

Probably something like it. 99% of my transactions are card / tap payments. The last thing I need on my main bank statement is 100s of small transactions - bucketing these into a separate "account" is 3/4 of the point of using a credit card for me - the alternative is entirely separate "cash" like account the only difference then would be paying in advance vs paying in arrears (I do both).

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

#323

Post by everfrustrated »

verzali wrote: post #221
tomp wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is in fact a massive pain in the ass, because car rentals and hotels often require credit cards to make reservations (at least in my experience...)

I've almost always found a debit card works in those cases.

Custom in Europe - where debit cards are the most common - is to settle the hotel bill on check-in.

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

#324

Post by lxgr »

tmtvl wrote: post #260
lxgr wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Oh yeah, let's put our financial sovereignty in the hands of American companies who have been fined repeatedly by the EU for breaking various laws. Seriously, if you have a problem with MasterCard and Visa, I can't imagine how you could NOT have a problem with Alphabet and Apple.

Sometimes it's worth reading the whole comment you're replying to.

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

#325

Post by watwut »

ifwinterco wrote: post #317
watwut wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Middle and higher income people dont need debt on monthly basis and see not having that debt as personal virtue. It just makes no sense to not pay things right away.

I would argue the opposite, makes no sense to pay right away when you can pay with no interest 15 days later on average. In an inflationary fiat currency system it's always better to defer payment assuming you can manage your cashflow and you're living hand to mouth

> makes no sense to pay right away when you can pay with no interest 15 days later on average.

Why in a pray tell would you favor late payment? Why would I create myself a chore for an end of a month if I can just pop a card, pay and see the transaction in e-banking right away? If it is auto-charge by the end of month, why not charge it right away?

You are gaining absolutely nothing.

> In an inflationary fiat currency system it's always better to defer payment assuming you can manage your cashflow and you're living hand to mouth

What are you talking about here. We are talking about people paying with euros.

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

#326

Post by sometimes_all »

PNewling wrote: post #169
lxgr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminder to all commenters that Europe is not a single homogeneous country and somewhat diverse in various things, including payments and finance. Credit cards are definitely a thing in many European countries.

As an outsider: which countries lean which way? I'm curious how things trend where and I didn't even really know that debit was used by a majority in certain places (Countries? Regions? Historical based delimiters?).

India has about a billion debit cards, but people mostly use them for ATM cash withdrawals, if that (banks used to give them by default during account opening, but have stopped this since UPI came into the picture). Only a single-digit percentage of people use credit cards, but they use them often and for relatively high-value transactions. The rewards game in the credit card space is slowly but surely reaching US levels, and they are associated more with stability and credit-worthiness since banks don't hand them out like candy, and India is, until recently, a debt-averse nation to revolve balances.

Mostly people use UPI, which is equivalent to debit cards given that amounts go directly from one bank to another. But UPI also supports some credit cards and lines, so there's that.

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

#327

Post by egorfine »

verzali wrote: post #221
tomp wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is in fact a massive pain in the ass, because car rentals and hotels often require credit cards to make reservations (at least in my experience...)

I've almost always found a debit card works in those cases.

Obviously. Because why would a rental company turn down > 90% of the customers?

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

#328

Post by egorfine »

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.

One should also bear in mind that the technical difference between Debit and Credit cards is quite blurry in the EU. Like, a card can officially be of the Debit kind, but have all the features of a Credit card enabled. Which is actually and typically the case.

And for example in Ukraine the situation is exactly the opposite: cards issued are typically Credit cards, but with all features of credit cards turned off which effectively makes them debit cards.

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

#329

Post by egorfine »

ano-ther wrote: post #153

Here is a more technical description: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12525-025-00822-7 I am still not quite sure how this would affect my day-to-day (private) payment experience transaction cost etc. But is has strategic value for Europe: > [...] European dependencies in critical technologies. A digital euro could mitigate these developments in the medium term if the infrastructure is mainly operated by E…

> how this would affect my day-to-day (private) payment experience

You will need to pass KYC at every counter.

Post reply on HN