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 EuropeanCentral 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 networkbaiming 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.
I think Europe is thinking too small. With lower fees and faster transaction times, with better protections through instant verification and online-first initiation, these payment systems are light years ahead of Visa and MasterCard, whose systems are still rooted in plastic cards and swipe roller on paper transactions.
American payment systems became huge because they served a need, but they haven’t evolved as fast as the times have. These new systems could largely replace them world-wide.
Yeah, I was surprised to learn that Americans can’t just transfer money - like, when I need to send a friend some money I just transfer it to them on my bank app. It’s instant and very easy. And, I could be wrong, but I think America still uses actual paper cheques. Yeah, things have evolved. Be great if Europe gets this system up and running soon.
It’s weirder than that: cheques are free, but wire transfers are very expensive. Which is really funny, because a cheque is just a very complicated way to set up a wire transfer these days. Someone gets the cheque, it gets scanned, and then the data is used to transfer money from origin to destination account.
Americans do use phone apps, like CashApp, Venmo, or Zelle and the like, adding a layer on top of direct payments.
Wait till you see how China pays for over a decade now. Only QR code or NFC. Since I moved here, I haven’t used cash or card in over 7 years. Everything you need is in one of the 2 super apps. You order food, cars, trains flights, bike share, etc all through the one app. Even the street vendors and few beggars you see, have a QR to scan.
I remember when X was going to be a super app 😂. Wonder what happened there…
That sounds like a nightmare tbh.
It is, I had to give cash to a colleague of mine who would send me money over wechat to be able to get anything done. I hated it.
What’s not to love about some government or corporate parasite being able to render you destitute because they raped your child, you called them a pedophile, and that hurt their feelings, so they designated you a “woke antifascist” on the social credit system…
We have NFC everywhere here, too. I realized the other day it’s been weeks since I’ve had my wallet with the cards in it, with me. Everything is on the phone these days, from an ice cream at the beach to a major appliance.
QR codes I haven’t seen used for payments. I guess they identify the recipient without the need for a payment system?
The USA could use that system for the homeless. Over there, begging yields nothing because nobody has cash on them, either.
The problem with the phone thing is that banks (though not all of them) limit you to two operating system vendors: Google and Apple. Is that better than Visa and MC?
It might be slightly better, in that Visa and MasterCard centralize processing, so that when you are sanctioned, payments stop immediately. Apple or Google can’t do the same thing, since they don’t process payments.
Now, I don’t know how much they are involved in deciding whether the phone itself is trustworthy, which is what the banks rely on to decide whether the phone app can be used.
No that’s only in the USA where you’re decades behind Europe only recently having discovered Chip and PIN that we’ve been using for over 20 years.
We started using chip and pin 10+ years ago. Most use tap now.
Try a road trip through the US. At least where I’ve been, you’d be lucky to find two gas pumps in a row that work with tap payments. A lot don’t even work with chip payments.
Those are the exception not the norm. Pretty much every store including the convenience store part of gas stations will always have tap 95% of the time and you can even prepay inside the gas station convenience store with a card with tap I would assume. I guess if you live in New Jersey you don’t even have to get out of your car to get gas lol.
Palm Trees aren’t trees, btw.
My experience contradicts this. I live in a blue state and would put the percentage of gas pumps that accept tap payments at 15%. Because most of the pumps that support tap have it disabled. You get an error if you even try to use it. Other nearby states seem even worse off. I don’t know where you live that has its shit so well together but it clearly isn’t here
That’s Visa and MasterCard, American companies.