“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.
King shit. Wish our leaders gave anywhere near a shit to do this in the US.
let’s f’in GOOOO! #YUROP
Why using archive link? Yeah well the archive site doesn’t work atm…
I guess you meant to link this? https://www.independent.ie/business/digital-euro-what-it-is-and-how-we-will-use-the-new-form-of-cash/a165973061.html
Also official website is:
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html
Because the archive link gets around the paywall. Unless you don’t see the paywall because it doesn’t apply to your region, but I only see the requirement to subscribe.
However the archive link does work for me.I’ve noticed that different mirrors of this service have been getting dns blocked. You should be able to swap out the hostname or use a different DNS provider to make it work.
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.
Right now the best I can do is accept Crypto on such a machine.
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
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.
No fees is a great incentive
For merchants.
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.
Some people have preferences based on morality and values rather than a pittance of insultingly low rewards.
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.
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.
Merchants and banks, and you bank may very well incentivise you
Ironically it’s EU rules that prevent merchants passing card fees onto customers
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
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
What makes you think this card will actually have more perks or that anybody but merchants get anything here? 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 and this seems to offer the end user few reasons to care.
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.
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
Yes I understand. But fairness rarely changes consumers behavior.
A lot of people don’t even own credit cards here, so that isn’t really a massive problem.
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.
why not share with australia :(
Because we already have this and have for 45 years with eftpos and debit cards?
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 https://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
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzkVBXDhTwY
Because Australia is not in the EU
If Australia joins the EU…
I wish !
And it will be app-only, forcing use of evilland corporation stores. Fuck that.
lmao back to square one with extra steps ?
well its still a win if visa and mastercard lose just a little money
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Improvements are incremental. Expecting perfect is stupid.
Besides, there’s a card.
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.
The wallet is supposed to be tracking free and offline, without an account at a bank. That’s an improvement.
We already have offline and without a bank account, it’s called cash. Also, offline & without a bank account can be stolen.
Yes, and cash online is famously difficult.
If you don’t want to lose the digital cash, use the anonymous card they propose.
I’ve noticed a few retailers in Canada charging more for credit cards - debit, cash and cheque are all no extra fee’s. The only reason I have a credit card is for the rewards and the necessity for things like hotels and car rentals.
If society could work in our favor and not try to force easy credit on us then we would all be better off.
If everyone wasn’t trying to screw everyone else we’d be better off.
The CC merchant agreements used to prohibit charging the customer for the charges.
Friend of mine that worked at a bank had a furniture store try to do that, she got hold of some muckity-muck at the CC company while the salesperson watched (after warning them that this wasn’t how any of that worked), the furniture store had their credit card machines suspended before she left the building. There was copious wailing and gnashing of teeth that she watched with a smile. She refused their offers of a heavy discount to make a phone call again and walked out.
They removed that part a couple years ago from many of the merchant agreements.
I cannot wait for this to come to fruition. Let’s hope that it isn’t a privacy cess pit though.
credit cards already are
If it was viable then I’d sign up asap.
I never understood why countries allowed digital payments like this. It effectively is like giving up monetary soverenty. Of course later I realized its because debt has been used for currency creation now.
Wait until you find out about how banks all around the world report to the bloody US IRS…
Hey IRS, how about you fuck off. As the only country who taxes non-residents (the only major country. Just the US and Eritrea…), I don’t think it’s appropriate for your government to be requiring our banks to hand over personal information.
This is excellent. We should never have left the EU.
This article claims there are very initial signs that you might get your wish: https://inews.co.uk/opinion/process-trying-undo-brexit-begun-4106581
I personally can’t get over the fact that a 50% majority was all that was needed for such a drastic change. The US despite all its flaws requires more than 50% for certain major things like amending the constitution. Hopefully you can one day rejoin and then make it so it would require a higher threshold like 2/3 majority before another brexit would be possible.
Thank you.
The UK has more of a set of conventions and principles than a constitution. We found out how weak that is when Boris Johnson broke the rules of Parliament to avoid losing a vote on Brexit, and made the Queen lie about it publicly in the formal announcement of the proroguement.
One of the principles is that no Parliament can bind its successor. For example, there was a fixed term parliaments law from 2010 or so that said that you need a two thirds majority to call an election before five years is up (rather than at whatever time suits the incumbent prime minister); when a new Parliament was elected in 2015, one of the first things they did was rescind that law, with a simple majority.
I worry that Farage, friend to trump and follower of Bannon, will become prime minister and lead us to such destruction that we will write an actual constitution, but that didn’t do America any good once the supreme court was stuffed with Republicans loyal to trump.
I think the trick is to not elect tyrants, but Putin’s propaganda reaches worldwide and the far right is rising everywhere. Perhaps it really will be global thermonuclear war this time.
I hope Americans are allowed to use it. I want to support hentai and to enjoy it without prudes getting in the way.
It comes to America
A bunch of Americans start using it
The provider sees a growing market and likes money.
Some pastor from Iowa sees tits on the Internet and gets offended.
Religious network of nutnobs pays for boycott ad campaign.
Provider silently or not so silently bans everything that can possibly offend christian pastors from the US.
We still need a sane payment providerBoycotting a service that has no fees doesn’t do much.
It reminds me of when I worked in a call center. Asshole, screaming callers would demand to speak to someone else and expect me to be somehow upset that I got to get them off my line.
right? like oh you don’t want to use this service that only costs us money? so sad… NEXT!
Pastors from Iowa and like-minded censorship lovers from the US are probably not the target customers, so I doubt the efficacy of an eventual boycott.
Worked on Steam
Steam was pressured by the payment processors, this is supposed to be a solution to the censorship due to the Visa / Mastercard monopoly.
yes but the point OP is making is that, if it comes to America, this third payment processor will be corrupted by making more money and wind up in the same boat as MC and Visa
Why do you think some random religious person would have any influence on a payment system from the other side of the planet?
We aren’t Americans, we can’t just be bought.
The technology is based on the existing Ideal system, which is already in use by the Netherlands. It works via apps from the banks themselves. Hence, you will need an account at an European bank.
Balls, guess Canada is stuck using the imperial processors. I’d have loved to use a European government system
You’re confusing Wero with the Digital Euro. This article is about the latter.
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.
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.
Doesn’t help us in AU unfortunately
Won’t have any effect 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.
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)
Pix neles
Suddenly caralho
The article didn’t mention but I hope they decide to implement Brazil’s Pix. It was featured in some international news recently, hope there is interest then we will march forward for a unified system outside the swift network and without duplicated efforts. And about not being 100% European, I don’t know the details but inside Brazil it is mediated by the Brazilian central bank but a 5min Google indicated that a standard international solution is still in development but it will work like a network of central banks, so the EU or even each country in the EU own system keep its independence. And as a network/federated system it would also be more stable since no one unilaterally can mess with it.
Extremely unlikely. It should be wero, most likely.
