- cross-posted to:
- BuyFromEU@europe.pub
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If anything, I’m really glad how Europe has stepped up and started cooperating more as a consequence of US actions these past few months.
The Chinese jokingly call Trump “Comrade Jianguo”, because of how his trade war has made China become more independent and stopped relying as much on American companies.
In the same way Trump’s latest tantrum seems to be good for the Europe.
That’s the Trump bump! And it’s only been eight weeks.
Or is it hump 🤔?
Please expand it to Canada too. We need a real alternative to Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover.
Canada shares a land border with Denmark and a maritime border with France.
I think that is sufficient to include them in any extended EU schemes.
(To the degree that they want it, of course)
France shares a land border with Brazil, we should get them into the EU as well.
I can support this.
Brazil and Suriname back into the European world.
🇧🇷🇸🇷
Yes, more European colonialism. That worked out really well in the past…
Oh wait.
Oof, yeah, sounds bad when you phrase it like that.
Canada shares a land border with Denmark
🤔
A maritime border with France.
🤔
Canada shares a land border with Denmark
Brave men & women fought over Hans Island in the Whisky War, and the resulting land border is a testament to their bravery, livers, and the determination to find a longlasting solution to land disputes!
Isn’t that about that disput where everynow and then a group of military from each country would go up a hill, plant a flag and leave a bottle of booze, just for the other country to take it down and swap the bottle?
If so, I’ve seen less convoluted ways to make friends.
Yes. It was solved in 2022 by dividing the island by a natural rift. However it was also decided that anyone who come to the island can travel the entire island without border control.
Finally! Crazy bickering.
Hans Island in the Arctic for Denmark and Saint Pierre and Miquelon, which is a small island off the eats coast of Canada, which remains a part of France.
We also administer Vimy Ridge in France. While it isn’t Canadian territory, we have been granted permanent usage of it. It’s a little bit like a land border. :)
GNU Taler seems to be a good thing to look into. Not a crypto currency but a payment system which preserves anonymity of the buyer.
Yay GNU Taler is very promising, but I fear banks prefer proprietary systems.
It may become widely used if there’s strong customer demand for GNU Taler, or regulation requiring an open electronic wallet. Most banks would probably be dragging their feet.
It has been a while since this appeared; I wonder if it picks up steam. Now or never?
There’s Wero, a European alternative to VISA and Mastercard.
Is it? Doesn’t look like they offer debit/credit cards.
Looks more like a PayPal alternative.
It’s based on iDEAL, which we use in the Netherlands since 2005. All the Dutch banks are connected to it and when you pay, you approve the payment in your banking app or website, after which it’s immediately deducted from your bank account and the webshop gets an instant payment confirmation. Variations of this are also used peer to peer, for example for splitting the bill or when buying second hand stuff. You send someone a payment request (url) or show a QR and payments arrive instantly on your bank account, without any fees.
So indeed, even though it’s immensely popular and widely used, it’s not a full replacement for physical debit cards and it doesn’t offer credit.
Every country in the EU has some system for direct debit payments.
Italy has Bancomat, Germany has EC/Giro, France has Carte Bleue, Belgium has Bancontact/Mister Cash (still have not figured out whether they’re supposed to be different or just different names in Flanders and Wallonia), and so on and so forth.
Does the Netherlands not have such a system?
It used to be that people would use these within their own country, but there would be Maestro for payments around Europe.
MasterCard decided to discontinue Maestro for MasterCard Prepaid which has higher fees.
The Germans whined about it a little and said that Europe should have come up with its own payment systems, but nothing came of it.
By now we are also supposed to have SEPA Instant, that should offer Europe-wide bank transfers. I still have not quite understood why a debit card system can’t leverage that directly.
For debit cards we’ve always used Maestro for as long as I can remember. Nowadays new debit cards are usually Mastercard or Visa due to Maestro being discontinued, like you mentioned. Back in the days we also had a system called Giro cards, but then I’m taking about the time when cheques were still a thing.
There’s also the option to use direct debits from your bank account, which we use for subscriptions and utilities. This can be approved using iDEAL, same as with one-time payments. This doesn’t involve Maestro, Mastercard, or any card whatsoever. Most Dutch people only use debit cards in a physical stores.
We use iDEAL to pay taxes, the invoice of your house renovation, your Spotify subscription, your utilities, you name it. Of course instant bank transfers are also an option, but that’s basically the same thing, but with more effort and room for error.
Yup that’s the current state of it. They say they’re planning to add in-store and online payment options though
It’s a PayPal alternative, but developed in tandem with most European banks. That way, it will at some point also be used as backend for your normal debit and credit card payments, instead of VISA / MasterCard. If I remember correctly.
Cashless payment is fucked. Using a phone to pay with? Sorry, only google wallet or apple pay, and in most cases only visa or mastercard. It’s only recently that that Danish “Dankortet” is getting support in those apps. Bit fucking late, but US led companies don’t give a fuck.
Samsung have their own wallet app, too. There are also a number of alternatives to Visa and Mastercard, but unfortunately, they are not as widespread or are limited to a particular countries banking system. In Canada, we have Interac, for example.
Yeah, but at least here in DK the banks have to “support” those wallets. And as far as I know, none of them do, it’s just Apple or Google. For reference the biggest bank in Denmark, “Danske Bank” also support Garmin Pay, but that’s for smartwatch NFC pay. (Also those products aren’t for plebeians like myself.)
Don’t let the Christians get up in there and dictate what you can and can’t buy with it
Yeah, that is what happened to DLSite. It sells Japanese media such as hentai, so Visa & Mastercard put a universal ban on their products, no matter the category. It is a 1st Amendment violation IMO, since they are gatekeeping an entire culture.
I can easily see MasterVisa banning European or Canadian merchants for the sake of a Trump Regime.
we shouldn’t allow private tyrants to control us like that
We’re so capable, it’s crazy we needed to be threatened to realize it.
I really hope that the EU introduces a global payment and banking system that is agnostic. I don’t want to be under MasterVisa’s thumb, and would prefer to keep the bulk of my money as Euros instead of American Dollars. Problem is, as an American, I can’t readily use Euros in my daily life.
Here’s hoping the EU can strike up a solution with Blue States, so that I don’t need to ask Musk for permission to buy anything.
You could solve half of it by getting a Wise account which comes with both a real USD routing number as well as an European IBAN. You can keep your money as euros and do card payments in USD or any other currency with better rates than a normal European bank account would give you
HOWEVER
The Wise debit card is still a VISA one.
Wise is definitely on my radar. I will go for it. Also, I should get my passport if I can. Who knows what kinds of interesting times we will live in?
Hopefully not too interesting. As much as we love to rag on Americans here, I don’t think anyone is rooting for mass deaths.
Unfortunately, the Traitor in Chief really likes Hitler and enjoys giving Putin a reacharound. I don’t like our odds for having peace.
Cash is king
Portugal has it’s own network, Multibanco, and I know our central bank is working on a system targeted to the SEPA+ area. We already can send money to each other usong our phone number and our fiscal number.
Portugal has it’s own network, Multibanco
That’s the customer-facing ATM network, i’m not so sure SIBS’s infrastructure doesn’t rely on Via/Mastercard, even if they provide SPEA facilities.
Multibanco existed way before Visa/Mastercard arrived here.
I’m Portuguese and also lived in other countries in Europe and Multibanco is a vastly superior system to everything else I’ve seen, but on the ATM side rather than the payments side (everybody seems to have their own payment solution or, like the UK, rely on the likes of Visa and MasterCard) - already back in the 90s in Portuguese ATMs, in addition to withdrawing money, you could check your bank account balance, get a statement with the last transactions on your account and even pay your bills all this well before widespread internet access and online banking: that stuff was way ahead of its time back then.
Right now they’ve added stuff like touchless mobile payments and transfers, but the rest has caught up with them so you’ll find such solutions in most countries plus that whole system is entirely local as it’s the product of ages ago (before neoliberalism) the government forcing the banks to get together and create a company - SIBS - under shared ownership of the banks, responsible for setting up and managing a national interbank payment systems.
I wouod even say that the Multibanco system probably helps Portuguese banks maintain market lock-in against external competitors, which does get translated to Portugal having pretty high banking fees compared to the rest of Europe, especially for one of the poorest countries in the EU.
SIBS came up with virtual credit cards since at least 2009 - those are Visa or Mastercard cards, mind you, although that’s defined by the debit card that it’s associated with (so defined by the bank).
You can pay your bills in Portuguese ATMs, buy tickets, recharge your travel pass, withdraw money without a card, etc… makes most other systems seem like the stoneage.
E eu a tentar ser resumido.
Sempre achei interessante o quanto mais avançado o Multibanco era que o resto e geralmente só que viveu fora e dentro de Portugal usando os sistemas bancários de onde viveu é que se apercebe disso.
A nossa união bancária forçada, juntamente com a imposição do regulador, criou e ainda cria soluções interessantes. Entristece que os portugueses não sejam conscientes destes avanços.
Não é só em Portugal - por exemplo poucos têm noção que a razão pela qual a Europa estava na dianteira da technologia móvel no início (entre os anos 80 e para aí 2010) era porque usava um único standard - o GSM - algo que foi imposto pelos reguladores quando leiloaram o espetro móvel. Os Estados Unidos, entretanto, tinham vários standardes competitivos e não interoperáveis e até à era do smartphone estavam atrás da Europa na maioria das métricas de coisas como cobertura móvel, preços e adoção da tecnologia pelos consumidores (e por volta de 2010 tinha uníficado as redes deles à volta do GSM-3)
Eu diria mesmo que a maioría dos políticos na Europa do Presente, depois de 4 décadas de neo-liberalism e um prégar sem parar da Bíblia Da Desgregulamentação e Do Mercado Livre, esqueceram-se dessas lições, e isso inclui a maioria deles em Portugal, na minha opinião.
Padronização faz falta e dá fruto e não elimina concorrência nem inovaçâo.
If only there was an encrypted permissionless way of sending money instantly, it’s cryptic nobody hasn’t invented a lite coin or moneyro like that.
Get out of here Charlie P
I don’t think I will. But say hi to your bank teller for me next time your card is declined (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ
…is that supposed to be a comeback of some kind?
I see you’re having a hard time keeping up with the convo, we can end it here buddy, don’t worry.
Ah that must be the issue: we aren’t having a convo. You’re a scammer. I called you a scammer. That’s it. No convo
Lol why am I a scammer, dummy? Because I like crypto? Listen let me give you a heads up… You’re not tge sharpest tool in the shed. You’re most likely at a disadvantage when arguing with strangers, so today’s tip: don’t. ಠ_ಠ
fuck YES!
ALSO: fuck plastic bank money, cash is king
This is a worry for me. I opened an ebay.co.uk account in 2004. You had to pay for purchases via Paypal. I had all sorts of problems using Paypal and customer care was lousy. I started looking into Paypal and decided it was unethical. I opted out. Ever since, I have been looking for more ethical financial services. When I cannot find them, I just do without stuff.
Right now, I have allegedly ethical bank accounts with Co-Op Bank (UK), Smile Bank (UK) and Triodos (EU). I have a savings account with a community-run credit union (UK) and a prepaid debit card account through my trade union for online purchases (UK). This is good enough for UK-based activity. But I often need to send money abroad e.g. to charities in other countries or to support podcasts or creatives based abroad. I am asked to fund via USA resources like Patreon and I refuse. I want an ethical alternative.
I want to see each nation (or groups like the EU) create its own local resources and make them compatible with other nations via some exchange service that guarantees secure, quick, ethical transactions. I am glad EU is starting to do this, it is decades overdue. I guess UK will drag itself forward eventually but only after we get a government able to live in the here and now instead of the C20th like Starmer does - I suspect he has not had a new idea since 1995. He’s younger than me but his mental processes make him seem like my grandfather. Oh, for some young people in government!
P.S. Hello, Media Storm, UK prize-winning investigative journalism podcast. You are great but I cannot fund you as you use oligarch-owned Patreon and communicate only via oligarch-run Instagram or gmail - if you read this, set up some UK-based, ethical comms or funding account and I will set up a monthly subscription. I will email you about this using mediastormpodcast(at)gmail.com but I resent it.
It’s weird that this hasn’t already long since happened. Most every Asian country I’ve been to has had its own local payment systems.
There seems to be this idea that Visa & Mastercard are somehow too big to be usurped, but it’s all illusion.