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Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

lesnumeriques.com

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Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#791

Post by kimos »

And1 wrote: post #78

Love to see it. When Canada legalized weed in 2018, the US administration made it clear that they can ban Canadians from the US for life if they have used marijuana in the past. The administration alluded to looking at Canadian's transaction history to facilitate cracking down on this more harshly[1]. It was so clear at that point to me how badly sovereign payments and banking is so needed. FATCA is a thing, I get it…

I worked at Shopify at the time this became legal and several provinces were launching on our platform. It was a monumental lift to get every single thing a transaction from these shops touches to only run on or through infrastructure on Canadian soil for this exact reason.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#792

Post by And1 »

kimos wrote: post #791
And1 wrote: post #78

Love to see it. When Canada legalized weed in 2018, the US administration made it clear that they can ban Canadians from the US for life if they have used marijuana in the past. The administration alluded to looking at Canadian's transaction history to facilitate cracking down on this more harshly[1]. It was so clear at that point to me how badly sovereign payments and banking is so needed. FATCA is a thing, I get it…

I worked at Shopify at the time this became legal and several provinces were launching on our platform. It was a monumental lift to get every single thing a transaction from these shops touches to only run on or through infrastructure on Canadian soil for this exact reason.

If you've written about this on a blog or elsewhere, I would be very interested in hearing more about this.

Can you say more here? Is this a payment gateway thing? I though if you used a visa/mastercard/etc that data is up for grabs by a foreign government, but if it's interac or some other payment method, does that ensure the data resides only in Canada?

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#793

Post by anygivnthursday »

tpm wrote: post #766
anygivnthursday wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Slovakia already have its own instant QR payment system? Edit: oh, sorry, just realized you talking about international not domestic payments

The whole SEPA area has instant SEPA payments. You can stick that into QRs or whatever. Some merchants take payments by SEPA, instant or not, but we need something else if we want to replace both online and in-person card payments throughout the whole EU, and at this point I doubt the Wero will be the replacement.

Not everyone is in eurozone, there are countries with instant QR payments that are not SEPA. It is nowdays quite common to get a QR with your invoice, online or in person, it might not be just SEPA. But for now cards are still more accepted, and work even if I leave my phone at home or it rans out of battery. Not sure how Wero or QR going to solve that, SEPA or not, but still useful for a lot of cases, online payments etc, even if it does not solve every edge case.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#794

Post by tpm »

anygivnthursday wrote: post #793
tpm wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole SEPA area has instant SEPA payments. You can stick that into QRs or whatever. Some merchants take payments by SEPA, instant or not, but we need something else if we want to replace both online and in-person card payments throughout the whole EU, and at this point I doubt the Wero will be the replacement.

Not everyone is in eurozone, there are countries with instant QR payments that are not SEPA. It is nowdays quite common to get a QR with your invoice, online or in person, it might not be just SEPA. But for now cards are still more accepted, and work even if I leave my phone at home or it rans out of battery. Not sure how Wero or QR going to solve that, SEPA or not, but still useful for a lot of cases, online payment…

Every EU country even outside of Eurozone is in SEPA. But SEPA payments can have their own issues - I believe they were not free in all countries some time ago, not sure what the status is currently.

There might be other instant QR payment systems out there though - I digress but on our recent visit to China we had to use Alipay as the cards are not accepted at most places and of course it works through scanning QRs, either you scan the vendor's code or they scan yours, and then you enter or confirm the amount and that's it. But the issue I have with these systems is the same as yours - we are fully dependent on our phones with no backup.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#795

Post by handedness »

rozap wrote: post #738
handedness wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: damn I think this account is actually a bot. It's only pro Israel talking points, islamaphobia, and appeals to the mod to get people banned. This kind of thing degrades discussion. Please don't do that here.

You're right, it does, and my edit was my emotion getting the better of me. But when you realize you're interacting with an account that only posts about the same few talking points and never contributed to tech discussion, I think it's a reasonable conclusion to come to. I was wound up enough to check his profile, which yea...don't do that, but he got me. Bot and troll accounts are good at that, whereas generally di…

With all due respect, you did it again.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#796

Post by l23k4 »

econ wrote: post #787
l23k4 wrote: post #785

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The eu it self has a faceless committee that debanks people without a day in court or any oversight. Which committee is that? >Banks are said to be required to state a reason for refusing or freezing an account Such requirements tend to exist only in the case of basic PAD accounts. >but at the same time they may not disclose reporting you. So? Reporting you does nothing.

If they think you are a fraudster or terrorist (etc) they have to refuse giving you an account and must silently report you. What would happen if they skip/delay the reporting part?

Banks are required to provide fairly detailed information when refusing basic PAD accounts on those grounds. This doesn't apply to regular bank accounts, but these are specifically the accounts intended by regulators for people who'd otherwise not be able to access banking services.

>What would happen if they skip/delay the reporting part?

They wouldn't. Typically banks take the approach of filing as many reports as they can. If you're overeager in filing the reports, nobody will look at them and you will not be blamed for not filing those reports.

Google for something along the lines of "suspicious activity report flooded" and you'll find endless stories demonstrating how ineffective these systems are.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#797

Post by l23k4 »

joe_mamba wrote: post #778
l23k4 wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's because of enforcement the bank is doing this. The policies don't prohibit banks from getting rid of risky customers, they actively encourage it.

What policies of local legal framework and the bank define as a "rksy customer" might vary completely. For example many EU banks refuse service to US citizens due to them still being tax liable in their own country and the banks not waiting to deal with that shit. Or they refuse service to Iranians, Russians or other nationalities in case of conflicts. That's the definition of a risky customer and they're legally all…

>What policies of local legal framework and the bank define as a "rksy customer" might vary completely.

No they don't? Your next sentence demonstrates as much:

> For example many EU banks refuse service to US citizens due to them still being tax liable in their own country and the banks not waiting to deal with that shit

Local jurisdiction makes fuck all difference. Ignoring foreign regulations would be suicidal for a bank which wants to take part in international commerce.

> But working legally in your nations arms industry is not the definition of a risky customer because you're a legal citizen with rights in your own country, your arms company operates legally with all the checks and approvals of the government, and the banks should as well

Any bank picks up a very significant regulatory burden by engaging in transactions with such an entity. The idea that any bank could just assume that an arms manufacturer is fully compliant because the Czech government allows them to exist is hilarious.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#798

Post by l23k4 »

joe_mamba wrote: post #776
l23k4 wrote: post #753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "because" part is wrong. Also, FWIW, countries in the EU don't just get to make their own banking rules. I don't have an argument, you are simply misunderstanding what's happening here. Closing accounts that belong to high risk customers who aren't making you a bunch of money is an entirely normal and legal thing to do. EU solved this a long time ago, you have the right to a "basic payment account". Just not nece…

> countries in the EU don't just get to make their own banking rules. They 100% do. >Closing accounts that belong to high risk customers who aren't making you a bunch of money is an entirely normal and legal thing to do. It isn't a legal thing to do because they didn't give a reason why. ANd if they do give a reason it must be legal to the local legal framework. Is being in the weapons industry a legal argument by Cz…

>They 100% do.

Not even close. For the most part, they're bound by EU regulations.

>It isn't a legal thing to do because they didn't give a reason why. ANd if they do give a reason it must be legal to the local legal framework. Is being in the weapons industry a legal argument by Czech laws to close someone's account?

Banks are only obligated to give a reason for closing basic PAD accounts. No such obligation exists for normal bank accounts.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#799

Post by luplex »

Wero's messaging is so confusing. It's so many different things at the same time. In short: Wero is a brand name for a collection of payment services. They are merging multiple European alternatives, like Spain's Bizum and the Netherlands' IDeal. These mergers are in various stages, so what exactly "Wero" can do depends on: - your bank - your country

Wero-proper (like it is in Germany, not a rebrand of a pre-existing system) currently supports peer-to-peer payments via SEPA instant transfer, using a centralized phone number IBAN lookup server.

Wero also supports online e-commerce payments (with buyer's protection similar to credit cards, managed by the customer's bank). But not all banks that support Wero p2p also support Wero E-commerce. If your payments run on e.g. Stripe, you can enable Wero for all participating banks. Wero is cheaper than credit card payments.

Some time next year, Wero will offer in-store point-of-sale (POS) payments. Afaik, those are not live anywhere yet.

I think with all the mergers with established systems, the chance of success is really high.

Re: Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment

#800

Post by kimos »

And1 wrote: post #792
kimos wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Shopify at the time this became legal and several provinces were launching on our platform. It was a monumental lift to get every single thing a transaction from these shops touches to only run on or through infrastructure on Canadian soil for this exact reason.

If you've written about this on a blog or elsewhere, I would be very interested in hearing more about this. Can you say more here? Is this a payment gateway thing? I though if you used a visa/mastercard/etc that data is up for grabs by a foreign government, but if it's interac or some other payment method, does that ensure the data resides only in Canada?

Unfortunately it wasn't my project so I can't speak to it with detail or authority. I was just observing.

It was things like: Where do log statements go? Via what path? Are we sure none of those routers are in the US? Can we spin up new instances of EVERYTHING in a `-ca` region? Can we force traffic for this shop to only use those instances? What about vendors? Can we disable US-only vendors of whatever? What about backups? What things are centralized (which were good to identify)? Can we region those too? Can we disable/bypass them?

And do that for every bit and packet for a very complex system. I think that it launched with a considerable number of features just disabled. Privacy trumped everything.

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