Pantherina (he)The Free Software Foundation Europe was cancelled by their payment provider after refusing to hand over personal account data!
ImgurRefugee114Payment processors are a blight
Actually yeah. Completely useless intermediaries just leeching other peoples money.
ageedizzleOther than Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, what’s the solution to this problem?
Cash.
Letting the post office become a bank. Which is an idea that’s been floated for like a century.
AFAIK lot of European countries have an equivalent of the USPS. Though in doing a quick search for this post I learned that Germany doesn’t have a state owned mail service anymore which is weird. Maybe it’s time for the EU to take on that role?
Yeah, most European countries don’t have a government postal service. Either it’s always been private or it was privatized decades ago. The USPS is fairly uncommon model.
🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞Wellllll, let’s make banks fulfil post office duties instead! :)
cageythreeI learned that Germany doesn’t have a state owned mail service anymore
It’s so dumb. We privatized all kinds of important infrastructure, then it became enshittified for revenue maximization and now it’s broken, shitty and expensive.
Some postal service, trains, telecommunication service, banks, airports & airlines etc have been government owned a few decades ago and worked so so much better.
Dutchy here; our national post office has been privatised decades ago (it currently goes by the name of PostNL). I believe most (western) eu countries don’t have a national postal service anymore, like there isn’t a national phone, tv or internet provider anymore.
mimavoxOur scumbag neoliberals privatized Deutsche Post in the 90s, but Deutsche Post AG is still legally obligated to provide basic mail service.
How would this work exactly? The post office would send cash around the same way they send letters around, or would they just handle direct bank transfers?
They would do everything a normal bank does. Here is an article that talks about the idea.
I see. Thanks for the info
SinTan1729We have it in India. I usually prefer them to most banks for savings accounts, or FDs. Their rates are usually much better.
The post office in our country became a bank, and then the bank-and-post-office was privatized and bought up and now the mail sucks and the former postal bank is investing in the Palestinian genocide (real estate on Palestinian land, weapons research with field tests on Palestinians, etc.).
kaki
ProdigalFrogGNU Taler, which is an anonymous (for the sender, not receiver) digital cash.
If the FSFE were to use a bank utilizing that system, the bank would not be able to request the sender’s information from them, as any person sending the donation is completely anonymous by design.
You can learn more about it over at [email protected]
deafboyIf the FSFE were to use gnu taller, the taler bank would’ve probably requested the same information through some other nonstandard channel sooner or later. The traditional electronic money has become like show breed dogs. They are no good without the papers. Especially in europe.
We need to eliminate the banks and the payment gateways from the paymemt process.
If a bank or preferably credit union adopts GNU Taler, they can’t realistically expect the receiver of the tokens to know who sent the tokens due go their anonymous nature. A receiver could put an info form before the GNU Taler part, but the sender could just put john doe info there.
It is truly like cash. I know in the US many banks would get weirded out if you try to deposit a large amount if cash and may report it to the IRS, but as long as its reflected in your taxes, then it should be okay.
Some banks in Europe are already adopting it, and credit unions would be much more likely to as well.
Digital Payment System GNU Taler Gets Green Light to Operate in Switzerland
GNU Taler, the privacy-preserving digital payment system, is now Swiss ready. GNU Taler (a swiss FLOSS alternative to Visa, Mastercard and Paypal) begins operating in Switzerland as Version 1.0 releases GNU Taler begins operating in Switzerland, distributed by the Taler Operations AG. Gnu Taler aims to be a “digital wallet” and has been used by the swiss national bank as well as the european national bank as a example for how a digital currency handed out by the state could work. It aim...
𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠I understand the sentiment but payments are quite a bit more complex that people tend to realize. For most companies, handling payments directly without an intermediary is far too expensive, complex and risky.
Fuck MasterCard and VISA btw.
Source: I work for a PSP.
What’s a PSP
Payment Service Providers sit in between companies (eg webshops) and payment methods/banks/card schemes. So as a webshop, instead of having to integrate with a bank to do transfers or with PayPal, you only integrate with the PSP. A lot simpler to do, and instead of having to chase each individual payment method for your money, the PSP will handle that for you. They can also provide additional services like a unified dispute view, credit management, small loans, etc…