Now that the US sees the EU as a potential enemy, Europe has moved to ensure its financial system can never be sanctioned or shut down; something the US has done to Russia, Cuba, and Iran.
By late 2025, efforts centered on the Digital Euro, a nonprofit payment system run by the European Central Bank (like euro cash). Due by 2030, it would offer lower fees and quickly replace much Visa and Mastercard usage. While still in development, other solutions arrived sooner. Instant bank-to-bank payments, bypassing cards, are expanding rapidly. In February, 130 million users across 13 national systems were linked in a Europe-wide network aiming to cover all of Europe. Fees are a fraction of Visa/Mastercard, though unlike the Digital Euro, it's not yet available as a debit card; only online and on phones.
The EU also wants to decouple from US software and is preparing its own alternative to Microsoft Office.
Europe Is Breaking Up With Visa and Mastercard — and It’s a $24 Trillion Problem
Europe builds Microsoft-alternative ‘Euro-Office’ to reclaim digital sovereignty
35 Comments
DandomRude@piefed.social · 47 pts · 137d
iknewitwhenisawit@fedinsfw.app · 12 pts · 137d
We're kind of there?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
We just need to expand it to more countries.
DandomRude@piefed.social · 14 pts · 137d
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 137d
Bancomat, Bizum, Wero, MB Way, Vipps etc. all need to be interoperable
stormeuh@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 136d
Wero is owned by European big banks. That's a slight improvement over US multinationals, but in an ideal world I would like my payment processor to be non-profit and owned by the people.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 137d
I have wero automatically in my bank app, France.
Samskara@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 137d
It’s far inferior to PayPal. Not all banks support it. Far less support by shops. No buyer protection.
RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 137d
It's a start, though. If you are waiting for the perfect replacement to magically appear, it's never going to happen. Widespread shop support takes time too.
Samskara@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 136d
Sure. Wero is just an alias to an IBAN. It doesn’t have any of the very useful features of PayPal or a credit card. It’s half assed and unattractive. An alternative that only has „we‘re European“ as a feature is not good enough. I don’t think it will succeed because of that.
NotEasyBeingGreen@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 136d
I use Wero for basically everything and don't have any problems with it. Maybe I don't buy from companies that are dodgy enough? 🤔
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz · 6 pts · 137d
It never happened because governments are corrupted and don't serve the public.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 136d
It didn't happen in the past because all software companies were monopolies, i.e. google, microsoft. and the same applied to banking.
that's changing now.
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 136d
Alternatives to these monopolies have always been around, at the government they use special encrypted computers and phones to make sure their own communications and data is secure.
jaycifer@lemmy.world · 37 pts · 137d
As an American, there’s a chain of instinctive thoughts that pass through my mind when I see another news article about the US losing another piece of world dominance:
Oh no, this could hurt me! Wait, I don’t make money from these companies.
My country will lose tax revenue! Wait, massive corporations pay minimal taxes anyway, this doesn’t affect the ability for my government to function.
The Visa/Mastercard employees working internationally will lose their jobs! Corporations have mass layoffs willy nilly anyway, this isn’t different.
The executives and corporate owners will lose revenue! Wait, they’re the ones who can afford to lose income the most out of anybody.
They’ve really done a good job dismantling any reason for me to give a shit about US corporations losing money.
ToastedRavioli@midwest.social · 17 pts · 137d
“How will I pay for stuff if I go to europe??”
Oh wait, I cant afford to do that anyways
Noodle07@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 134d
Fun fact you can open a bank account in minutes in europe by going to a press store
krigo666@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 137d
In Portugal we can choose in the terminals to use our local network for debit, Multibanco. This network exists since the early 80s and all banks are part of it.
ViatorOmnium@piefed.social · 16 pts · 137d
The problem is that all EU countries have their own system, but the problem is that all work just inside of a country. You can't use Multibanco in Spain, and someone with a German account can't use a Girocard in Portugal, the same for international online shops.
krigo666@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 137d
Yes, of course, but at least we can avoid using 'murican' payment systems inside the country. Can't wait for Wero to be available here, will change my cards to it.
fushuan@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 136d
If I recall correctly, the systems Portugal, Spain and Italy already have were having talks to integrate with each other, in hopes of then being able to integrate with the new German/European initiative with minimal effort.
I've not looked it up again in a long while, but apparently we now have interoperability with MB Way and Bancomat. Idk how well it works though. https://bizum.com/es/internacional/
If you use it to pay in stored however, the issue is not really that you can't use MB Way in Spain, it's that Bizum is not that deployed in physical stores yet. And by yet I mean this shit started deployment like 5 years ago and no store I know near me takes it. Edit: never fucking mind! Apparently they are launching something similar to google pay in May this year.
raicon@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 137d
Pix from Brazil is also amazing, instantenous and free for individuals
Sequence5666@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 136d
Yeah but non nationals of Portugal cannot use it. So it doesnt help cross border payments like UPI from India does
SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 17 pts · 136d
Hopefully, Europe will offer these alternatives to Americans. I want to be free of MasterVisa's yoke.
No1@aussie.zone · 12 pts · 136d
Oi!
We Aussies have been in Eurovision for over a decade.
Does that qualify us for this payment system?
Cheers
RamenJunkie@midwest.social · 5 pts · 136d
No, but only because you are technically a British prison colony and England left the EU.
No1@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 136d
Goddamit!
UK still fucking us over!
And somehow the dumb cunts won't vote to Brexit Australia!
stoy@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 137d
Here in Sweden we have a service called Swish, it is the equivalent to the Norwegian service (with a far funnier name) Vipps, and similar to the US Cash App.
I don't know what the backend is using, but it is a local service that you can use in many shops.
I lost my bank card for a week and while annoying, I mostly managed using Swish.
MirrorGiraffe@piefed.social · 5 pts · 137d
Yeah but swish and BankID are owned by the Swedish banks and thanks to that they are not interested in partaking in many of the cross border systems as they don't want competition in Sweden.
Sweden may be progressive in some ways but we are completely backwater when we allow the banks - who constantly get caught in laundering schemes - to control vital infrastructure.
They are also refusing to integrate their apps with "competing" id apps such as Freja. If the authorities expect them to profit from infra there needs to be regulations for these things.
RedSnt@feddit.dk · 2 pts · 137d
It's curious how Denmark, Norway and Finland ended up with Vipps Mobilepay while Sweden was left out.
MirrorGiraffe@piefed.social · 4 pts · 137d
They banks wanted to keep their monopoly on the payment market and have no incentives to allow competitors.
Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 137d
It can't come soon enough, the only problem I see is that at a global level every country is developing their own closed system that does not operate with others and when you are travelling visa/mastercard remain the only true cross border solution. I wish countries collaborated more on a system like matrix or lemmy where the backend is the same across the globe even if the end user experience is completely different.
chunes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 136d
that's far too much power to entrust to people. I say break it up and be grateful for the inconvenience.
bufalo1973@piefed.social · 1 pts · 137d
The private system, yes. But the digital euro will be a public unique system for all the Union.
Mwa@thelemmy.club · 2 pts · 137d
AFAIK, Here in Qatar we have our own network called "NAPS".(alongside Visa and Mastercard)
Octagon9561@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 136d
Amex and Discover are good then? /s
WhoIsTheDrizzle@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 136d
As an American, credit cards have been enshittified to the point of forcing me to use debit or cash. The best rewards credit cards have degraded into garbage and most restaurants and lots of stores have stopped eating the credit card fees and pass them to the customer. So instead of getting 5% back from credit card rewards, you're getting 2-3% and you're also paying that an extra fee when you use your card at establishments, so at best it's usually a wash. There's really no point anymore. It makes more sense than ever to pull your money from banks, put it in a local credit union and stop trying to game rewards credit cards from bigger banks.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 137d
At the same time our smart EU leaders have made us critically dependent on their LNG and oil after they blew up Nordstream.
Much more important