Mastodawn

The EU says it will introduce a digital payments infrastructure to replace Visa/Mastercard & Apple/Google Pay. It will have zero fees and be 100% European-only.

https://futurology.today/post/7910325

The EU says it will introduce a digital payments infrastructure to replace Visa/Mastercard & Apple/Google Pay. It will have zero fees and be 100% European-only. - Futurology Today

“It didn’t go unnoticed in Frankfurt that Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in Russia in March 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine……Thirteen of the 20 countries in the euro have no domestic card scheme. You use an international operator, or you pay in cash.” It hasn’t gone unnoticed that the US is threatening to invade an EU country’s (Denmark) territory, either. Would a future President Trump or President Vance threaten to shut down European financial infrastructure if it opposes an annexation of Greenland? Who knows, but better to take away that opportunity for leverage. The plan is that you can link it to your bank account or open a special account at post offices throughout the EU. There will be phone apps for payments and digital Euro debit cards. Visa/Mastercard & Apple/Google Pay typically charge 3% fees; the digital Euro will have none. That will ensure it is speedily adopted by retailers and quickly supplants the US providers. Also worth noting its technology will be 100% European only, leaving zero vulnerability/leverage to non-Europeans. Digital euro: what it is and how we will use the new form of cash - The European Central Bank is determined to break the US grip on card payments [https://archive.ph/ERzTA]

Quacksalber Dec 29

It’ll be interesting to see how they’ll handle steamy steam games. The whole steam and itch deplatforming saga was kicked off by Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.

ryannathans Dec 29

Doesn’t help us in AU unfortunately

SkunkWorkz Dec 29

Won’t have any affect as long as they need to have Visa and Mastercard for other territories. In Europe you can already pay with European payment systems on Steam like iDeal (Dutch) and Trustly (Swedish) and those porn games still got removed in the territories that have those payment options.

Quacksalber Dec 29

Yes, but if that european payment provider is less strict, maybe other platforms can fill that gap.

Brazil has PIX and steam accepts it, no problems. (pix is a government created payment method that has 0 fees and is basically instant, you never wait for confirmation)

NuXCOM_90Percent Dec 29

Considering the push for stuff like chat control and the increasingly global lock down on “obscenity”:

They’ll handle it according to plan.

Like, good. Hurt the US’s soft power. But people really should be looking even a foot in front of their faces on this.

why not share with australia :(

Because we already have this and have for 45 years eftpos and debit cards?

Except for the surcharge on weekends and public holidays of course.

We do not, eftpos does not go over the net

EFTPOS is a direct bank-to-bank transfer system, but online payments usually involve a payment gateway (like Stripe, PayPal) to process card details securely.

The only options we have to pay online are visa/mastercard/etc (eg. the same as Europe which is why they invented the Digital Euro) we don’t have anything equivalent and as far as I know have no plans to replace this system

I have seen azupay.com.au using payid to pay for things over the net like flight tickets etc but 99% of online payments go through visa/mastercard

Europes version of EFTPOS is SEPA which is not what the digital euro is

More info on the digital euro here:

Goodbye Visa & Mastercard? The Digital Euro Explained

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkVBXDhTwY

Real‑time Pay by Bank for Australian Enterprise | Azupay

Azupay turns PayID and PayTo into enterprise‑ready payments. Higher checkout conversion, fewer failures, instant settlement, and built‑in compliance - online, in‑app, and in‑person.

Azupay

chaosCruiser Dec 29

If Australia joins the EU…

I wish !

Because Australia is not in the EU

FiniteBanjo Dec 29

Ah man, I was kind of excited until it said European-only.

I thought maybe I’d be able to build a till from scratch without purchasing a software suite from IBM written in the 80s.

I mean, it’s gonna ultimately have to work everywhere

People don’t like having cards they can’t use when they travel

It’s not gonna happen right away, but I don’t see how it doesn’t end up that way

Edit: although reading more it might not be equivalent to the existing kinds of cards as it seems to be a debit only provision (i.e. potentially lacking a lot of the protection you get from using a credit card as your main purchasing card). Will be interesting to see how this evolves

A lot of people don’t even own credit cards here, so that isn’t really a massive problem.

kunaltyagi Dec 29

A credit card that only works domestically is not a deal breaker. Most of the time, people don’t travel abroad. So, using a more advantageous card (more perks, less fees, etc.) domestically makes sense.

Domestic providers are a thing in several countries which are smaller than EU. Some of them don’t operate internationally so this news isn’t that weird

CallMeAnAI Dec 29

What makes you think this card will actually have more perks? I get roughly 3-4% in rewards, a $100 travel voucher every year, free dash pass and Lyft memberships. My perks might not be for everyone but there are a ton of good cards out there.

For what it’s worth, the rewards they give are taken from merchants commissions. It might be great for the cc owner, but it’s not very fair

CallMeAnAI Dec 29

Yes I understand. But fairness rarely changes consumers behavior.

prodigalsorcerer Dec 29

Are you in the EU? My understanding is that those rewards are not available in the EU due to their much lower transaction fees. Admittedly, I’m not in the EU, so this is second hand knowledge.

CallMeAnAI Dec 29

No, of that’s the case then it’s less of a difference.

CallMeAnAI Dec 29

It’s DoA unless the EU mandates or coerces end users. There is absolutely zero incentive for anyone but the merchants as far as I can tell.

RobotToaster Dec 29

Ironically it’s EU rules that prevent merchants passing card fees onto customers

No fees is a great incentive

Billygoat Dec 29

Yeah, for the merchants. If you were about to pay for €200 of groceries and had this card and a Visa card that gave 3% back, which would you choose to use.

EtnaAtsume Dec 29

Some people have preferences based on morality and values rather than a pittance of insultingly low rewards.

Billygoat Dec 29

Yep, with you there but people are people. They will see those rewards and go for it. It is the same reason why the JC Penny campaign to remove flashy sales and discounts and just price items lower failed.

Merchants and banks, and you bank may very well incentivise you

DireTech Dec 29

So merchants counter by the EU card getting a 4% discount over credit just like many do these days for cash. It’s easy to beat the rewards rate.

CallMeAnAI Dec 29

For merchants.

SkunkWorkz Dec 29

It’s a public service for people in the EU and businesses operating in the EU paid for by EU taxpayers. So I doubt it will be rolled out outside of the EU. It still cost money to operate the service eventhough it is provided for free. If it ever gets to work outside the EU it will probably only be for people that have EU residency. No way they want to subsidize the transactions for people from outside of the EU with EU tax money.

If it works and grows, the service could be SOLD to foreign entities

I mean, you absolutely could make a till but you still have to hook it up to a payment provider like Adyen, Stripe or a terminal that handles the payment.

I cannot wait for this to come to fruition. Let’s hope that it isn’t a privacy cess pit though.

starchylemming Dec 29

credit cards already are

raspberriesareyummy Dec 29

And it will be app-only, forcing use of evilland corporation stores. Fuck that.

starchylemming Dec 29

lmao back to square one with extra steps ?

well its still a win if visa and mastercard loss just a little money

raspberriesareyummy Dec 29

From the article:

“We have to see off the naysayers who tell people this is about government control, or monitoring, or trying to replace cash,” says Regina Doherty. “None of these things are true. We have to prove that to people.”

This lady is either completely shameless in lying to people’s faces, or she is very, very stupid.

RedGreenBlue Dec 29

Seems everything these days are tied to a phone. Even when there is no need for it or convenient.The day we loose wide access to smartphones, society is fucked.

raspberriesareyummy Dec 29

The day we loose wide access to smartphones, society is fucked.

If that ever happened, I think the opposite would be true. We would have a chance to heal, and all those morons thriving on mobile applications would hopefully go bankrupt and become meaningless.

Randelung Dec 29

Improvements are incremental. Expecting perfect is stupid.

raspberriesareyummy Dec 29

It’s not an improvement. An improvement would be to offer EU-wide exactly what iDEAL was in the Netherlands. There was no need to change anything about the iDEAL system, no need for an extra app, no need for another card, just your regular bank account and any web browser + whatever transaction number solution you had.

This proposal is not an improvement, it’s another step into a totalitarian regime where every single transaction is tracked by the war criminal and pedo-criminal monsters in our governments.

Randelung Dec 29

The wallet is supposed to be tracking free and offline, without an account at a bank. That’s an improvement.

raspberriesareyummy Dec 29

We already have offline and without a bank account, it’s called cash. Also, offline & without a bank account can be stolen.

Randelung Dec 29

Yes, and cash online is famously difficult.
If you don’t want to lose the digital cash, use the anonymous card they propose.

Downloading a standalone digital-euro app on your phone will be another option. Or using a special digital-euro card, which the ECB will also issue.

Read the article before spreading disinformation.

raspberriesareyummy Dec 29

Read the article before spreading disinformation.

I don’t think you know how a “digital-euro card” is going to be implemented. Are you really so naive to believe it will work without a non-free application running from either your phone or your computer?

I don’t think you know how a “digital-euro card” is going to be implemented.

And you do?

If it was viable then I’d sign up asap.

elgordino Dec 29

Visa/Mastercard & Apple/Google Pay typically charge 3% fees

Not in the EU. Visa and Mastercard have been capped to 0.5% for years.

Apple / Google pay take a small cut from the 0.5%

Diversity in payment methods would be no bad thing though. It’s amazing how Visa/Mastercard have managed to insert themselves into almost ever transaction, particularly since contactless became so prevalent.

u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)Dec 29

Aren’t there some other fees? Some smaller shops even outright ask if you don’t have cash instead.

I am completely uninformed on card payment fees but l imagine some if this is because it’s easier to underreport cash revenue to tax authorities

Blackmist Dec 29

The merchant will often take a larger amount. For example Square charge 1.75% fees.

The 0.5% is the bit that goes to Mastercard/Visa iirc.

It’s never an enormous amount, and if they don’t have to let Mr Tax Man know then some small businesses won’t.

It depends on your POS operator. Looking around commissions are usually between 0.5% and 2.5% depending on the card, where it comes from, the circuit, whether it’s consumer or commercial etc…

Randelung Dec 29

Holy shit, this is exactly what I was talking to my parents about over Christmas. A wallet in your phone, money lost when stolen, no tracking. This is potentially big.

Barbarian Dec 29

That’s not what this is. It’s not a digital wallet: it’s a transfer method. It’s essentially the direct equivalent of the virtual cards most banks are offering these days.

Randelung Dec 29

It’s a wallet, it literally said so in the article.

Barbarian Dec 30

That’s for people who for whatever reason don’t use a bank. If you have a bank, it’s with your bank.

RobotsLeftHand Dec 29

The article explicitly states that that might be one option, to have a separate, offline fund that is tied directly to the phone, but it isn’t the default and, again, optional.