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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

#451

Post by boq »

joe_mamba wrote: post #363
scythe wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking device might be the wrong thing to focus on. The US has other ways of messing with foreigners who depend on services provided by US companies, like suddenly cutting off those services in the case of ICC judges.

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…

> 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.

They lost access to everything american, including Visa and Mastercard. It's in french and maybe not the best source but it's not paywalled :

https://www.tf1info.fr/international/nous-sommes-attaques-le...

> "Payments are mostly cancelled," he continued, "as almost all cards issued by banking institutions in Europe are either Visa or Mastercard, which are American companies."

They are not completely debanked since they can go to the bank and withdraw cash, but it's a crippling situation to be in.

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

#452

Post by potwinkle »

joe_mamba wrote: post #363
scythe wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking device might be the wrong thing to focus on. The US has other ways of messing with foreigners who depend on services provided by US companies, like suddenly cutting off those services in the case of ICC judges.

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…

You most likely use a Windows PC and an Android phone. If Uncle Sam viewed you as a threat actor, he could ask both companies to send you a signed and verified update to either your OS or apps they control, running whatever he wants.

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

#453

Post by joe_mamba »

digiown wrote: post #446
miohtama wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no chance that European instutitions can impose their will against a considerable majority of people The EU commission just passed chat control to have government mandated software in every phone

It's substantially neutered from the original proposal, with most of the scary parts taken out. I'd count that as a win as far as how antidemocratic the EU commission is. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/after-years-controvers...

Given how many world leaders form the west had absolutely the most vile chats with Epstein about doing despicable things to people, I'd totally want chat control but only for our leaders. They certainly proved that's who needs it the most to keep us safe.

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

#454

Post by ignoramous »

digiown wrote: post #369
ignoramous wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny that the EU uses all this mobile attestation BS more than the US does Attestation in on itself isn't unwarranted which (to me) is an important security measure. Attestation as commonly implemented on Android via Play Integrity (the way banking apps are known to do) is restrictive, sure: https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu... / https://archive.is/snGEu

> important security measure It's a security measure against the owner of the device , in other words, an attack. Would you be okay with me using a remote control to forcibly slow down your car so I can merge? Using attestation this way is fundamentally incompatible with ownership. If the bank wants some assurance about a device, they need to sell or issue one to me, like credit cards or point of sale machines, which…

> If the bank wants some assurance about a device, they need to sell or issue one to me, like credit cards or point of sale machines, which are explicitly not your property.

In this example, a banking app is not making the entire Android device non functional when it refuses to work when remote attestation like Play Integrity fails.

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

#455

Post by hermanzegerman »

alistairSH wrote: post #220
carlosjobim wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debit cards come with the same fraud protection as credit cards do, which is the most important benefit of Visa/MasterCard.

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.

In Europe your liability for Card Misuse is capped at 50€ for things that happened before you blocked it.

Also how would someone misuse it? You need a PIN Code for every transaction anyway, and the EMV Chip can't be cloned like Magstripes.

Online Payments need a mandatory 2 Factor Authentication

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

#456

Post by axus »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #150
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…

Hmm, maybe for countries with strong consumer protection, yes. I lost 3 credit cards INSIDE an airplane (hello AirAsia!). I only realized it when I turned on my phone while queuing at immigration and was bombarded with dozens of "Successful transaction" messages. That's ~30min from stepping off the airplane. When I checked my statements, I saw dozens of physical transactions (swipes/taps) with different merchants in…

I had missed the warning that this tech is now widespread. Must have not logged into Hacker News that day

https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/nfc-gate-relay-attacks-2026/5...

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

#457

Post by hermanzegerman »

aspbee555 wrote: post #214
carlosjobim wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debit cards come with the same fraud protection as credit cards do, which is the most important benefit of Visa/MasterCard.

with a debit card your cash is gone from your bank account in that moment, even if you get it back later (hopefully). With a credit card they are not able to drain your bank account, the risks are entirely on the cc company and they will be significantly more motivated to get that back than a bank would. it's entirely their problem, not yours

No, Card Misuse is their problem either way in the EU

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

#458

Post by carlosjobim »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #282
carlosjobim wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debit cards come with the same fraud protection as credit cards do, which is the most important benefit of Visa/MasterCard.

Not true. At least not in Sweden. There are different laws from credit cards and debit cards.

This is the law which regulates such things, and the law makes no difference between any payment service (ie credit or debit), when it comes to unauthorized use, see chapter 5:

https://svenskforfattningssamling.se/sites/default/files/sfs...

Edit: Page 28 to be precise.

The law explicitly states that funds have to be reimbursed to the victim immediately or at latest on the same bank day.

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

#459

Post by avianlyric »

eastbayjake wrote: post #97
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…

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 by the various financial entities that communicate via the payment network. The reason Visa and Mastercard haven’t been easily replaced is simple network effects, nobody wants to integrate with a payment network where there’s nobody to transact with.

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

#460

Post by JambalayaJimbo »

digiown wrote: post #369
ignoramous wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's funny that the EU uses all this mobile attestation BS more than the US does Attestation in on itself isn't unwarranted which (to me) is an important security measure. Attestation as commonly implemented on Android via Play Integrity (the way banking apps are known to do) is restrictive, sure: https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu... / https://archive.is/snGEu

> important security measure It's a security measure against the owner of the device , in other words, an attack. Would you be okay with me using a remote control to forcibly slow down your car so I can merge? Using attestation this way is fundamentally incompatible with ownership. If the bank wants some assurance about a device, they need to sell or issue one to me, like credit cards or point of sale machines, which…

>against the owner of the device

Would you consider MFA to be a measure against you, the owner of the device, because it makes it harder for you to login?

>If the bank wants some assurance about a device, they need to sell or issue one to me

They are offering you free software and are operating under a security model tied to these specific devices. You're still free to walk into their branches, or use their physical cards, if you prefer not use their limited selection of devices.

>Would you be okay with me using a remote control to forcibly slow down your car

Car manufacturers do this as well though. Some of this is for the benefit of their customers (preventing theft from easily cloned keys). Some of this is not for customer benefit, like locking down infotainment systems.

Banks however are only interested in preventing fraud.

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