Hey guys!
Visa and Mastercard are the 8th and 15th biggest companies in the world, worth more than 1.1T USD (!!!).
For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.
That’s one the biggest waste of money from EU you can imagine.
I’m trying to find viable alternatives but except paying cash it seem there is no real alternative. Even in where I live there is an alternate payment service but they take the money from my mastercard, duh…
And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?
Edit: Bitcoin would be a solution if widely adopted, but more realistic would be something accepted by every cashier machine, and if possible using the NFC of your phone, a kind of “Apple/Google” Pay, that goes directly from your bank to the bank’s shop. Where I live all debit cards are either visa or mastercard…
Edit2: There is an EU initiative that seem to be starting with WERO, never heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative
Edit3: It seem that Paysafecard and Skrill are EU solutions and sometimes proposed in the payment method, but not with STRIPE payment solutions
You must log in or # to comment.
And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?
Use cash
A sensible stopgap solution, but doesn’t really work for big purchases or online shopping.
For big purchases it doesn’t, indeed. But for online shopping, would it work if you select payment on delivery at checkout, maybe?
China has UnionPay, Japan has JCB, Russia has MIR. Europe should have its own credit card network
“EUROCARD”
Sounds nice as well
Make it blue with stars on it and the globe displaying a space picture of earth with europe
@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu let’s make this happen, mkay?
CC: @EUCommission
Done. Hopefully they’ll see my tag
Also used to be a thing already https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocard_(credit_card)
Wero will become the replacement over time.
But for now, you’re stuck with Visa and Mastercard if your country doesn’t have a local alternative.
Just get the cheapest option.
Wero flew by my radar, thanks for the hint. Three of my banks even support it already, awesome!
Wero can win if the banks offer it with no additional cost to stores and, and this ia crucial, it offers credit and the blocking of funds for stuff like car rentals.
It needs to be as easy a visa/MasterCard and cheaper / easier to run with the same features. I have hope, but that is a tough order.
It will take a while to replace Visa/MasterCard
For now it’s only trying to replace PayPal no?
Awesome! Did not know of this. Will investigate.
Have you looked into American Express?
<checks community name> oh shit, nevermind.
Clearly Discover is the solution. Oh wait, that’s not an option either.
Discover network is up for sale. Capital One is trying to grab it. But if that doesn’t go through, a Canadian or European bank could try bidding for it.
In Italy we use satispay
Isn’t PagoBANCOMAT a good solution too?
Bitcoin uses way to much energy to use as currency like that. gridcoin or any other one that uses proof of stake would be better if accepted but its a bit nicer if the energy put into it results in a useful product which gridcoin does.
How does production of physical cash and movement of money between accounts compare to crypto?
creation of physical cash’s cost are not inflated and get changed based on cost and necessity. Using cheaper materials to reduce cost but adding advanced elements which increase cost. Again though it does not have an artificial inflation mechanic causing it to use more energy over time and is just based on method and materials. A big thing in this is how long it functions. coins cost more than paper mostly but one thing people don’t take into account is how long they last versus paper. So you typically see things about a penny costing more than a penny but whats not taken into account is that it is least lasting coin at 25 years while most paper under 50s last less than 10 years but longer lasting denominations are usually used less. It comes down to how much value physical money gets in its lifetime vs its cost to make. So you add up every transaction and average out the value for a particular currency type. Movement is done in the real world so its a bit apples to oranges. It does not require anything necessarily. If all computers and electricity. So its going to vary greatly if I give my brother a fiver for grabbing his oj than if I go deposit it at a bank to if I buy from a retalier to if I foolishly mailed it directly. I don’t think physical money can be compared to much of any electronic equivalents honestly. That is in the realm of folks that believe in cashless system to ones who want some ability to have the physical ability.
A local debit card is your best bet
Maestro is part of MasterCard.
Maestro isn’t a local system it’s a limited debit card like electron for visa. Other comments are about national Credit cards. WERO is the only European network pushed by the ECB (and begrudgingly taken up by most major European banks). It piggy backs on the Free-of-charge instant wiring SEPA system.
TIL Maestro still exists
Those still go through the bank card system.
Use cash.
How do you pay cash online?
And I don’t think the banking system is evil and should be destroyed, I just want the EU to be strong and independant, have tech and finance sovreinty
Online you pay by bank transfer. Instead of “credit card”, I choose “online bank”, click my bank’s name, enter my online banking login and password, give one of the single-use codes and press “transfer”. A bank transfer from my account to the bank account number defined by the shop is made, no money goes to USA.
Are these instant transfers if they’re not using VISA?
On working days before 16 o’clock bank transfers inside EU are instantaneous. After that, next working day. If the shop has the same bank as the customer, it’s always instantaneous.
But, the shop receives immediate confirmation that the money has been successfully taken from the customer’s account and will arrive soon.
…which is actually how it works with card payments as well. With card payments, the shop receives the money about a week later, but gets an immediate confirmation that the money is on the way.
Some online stores have the option to pay by check or money order, but that only solves half the problem.
The banking system is just a symptom. Money itself is evil and should be destroyed.
In Canada we have Interac. Works great.
This might not help you OP, but alternative to VISA and Mastercard is UPI. India and some south east asian countries use that for transactions rapidly. Also India also built Rupay (not the currency) to break visa and mastercards duopoly.
Interesting, from the wiki page it looks like some places in the UK accept it.
If you’re in the Nordics I suggest Vipps/Mobilepay/Swish as payment methods.
You still have to add a credit/debit card to it though.
Not sure about Vipps/Mobilepay, but for Swish I don’t think you do. It’s connected directly to the bank account IIRC.
That’s nice. For MobilePay, you connect your bank account to receive money, but to send you need a card. You can also send using a bank account, but a card needs to be connected regardless (stupid design).
Easy: iDEAL (which is a shitty system, but still…)
Doest that only work in NL?
iDEAL has been acquired by WERO which is an EU initiative for pan-European payment system. Wero is being rolled out by banks in France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxemburg.
I’d like to know who got the idea to name the system with a word meaning “tax” in Finnish, one of the official languages of EU… Both are related to money, so there is a possibility for confusion.
(We used to always use w, and had a reform some ~century ago to allow using v instead. Therefore, w is considered another form of v in Finnish, and thereby wero equals vero)
It’s supposedly going to become EU-wide: https://nltimes.nl/2023/04/25/dutch-payment-processor-ideal-become-european-standard
Looking forward to that.
For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.
I’m not sure I understand this. The stores would be the ones to pay this fee, no? Not you with your money. The price of some item doesn’t change depending on whether you use cash or a debit or credit card. Not usually anyway, maybe a small local shop has done this to me once or twice in my life. Or maybe a fair stand or something.
If we wanted to stop giving Mastercard and Visa “our” money, we would have to all band together as a world community and boycott them. 😬
Please someone correct me if I’m wrong!
Edit: I mean, yes, of course the price of those small transactions are included in the price of the item. So we are all “paying” Mastercard and Visa money, even those who aren’t using them. Which is still to my point that we need to all band together as a world community to boycott them, which seems futile in all honesty.
While the shop pays the fee, the fee is priced in and still the money ends up going to the card company based on your purchase.
We had this topic a lot with the tariffs recently. Yes technically the tariffs are paid by the importer or exporter. Doesn’t change the fact that they end up being part of the consumer price (which is one of the purposes of tariffs)
Yes you’re correct.
However, those costs are ultimately passed to you, as higher prices are the only ‘trickle’ that consumers will receive.Indeed, and if you’re not using MC/Visa, then the vendors just happily pocket the difference.
Handling cash costs money as well.
At least it stays in the EU in that case
You are absolutely correct
Now I just prefer my (or the store’s money if you prefer) to recycle in the EU. We need it.
We do indeed. Although not gonna lie, Americans are also cash strapped. But Mastercard and Visa definitely don’t need more money!
Technically you’re right. The merchant pays the fee. But, those transactional costs are overall calculated into the prices. Like everything else e.g. transportation, packaging, wages, theft, breakage etc. So in the end it’s the customer paying those 2-3% even though no price changes if you change payment.
As for the boycott: yes, sure. Voting with your wallet always works. The problem is how deeply they’re burrowed into the system globally. The merchant doesn’t care, it wants its money in whatever way. But if they don’t offer an alternative, you can’t boycott it (unless you erase that product from your life or find another merchant). And if you don’t boycott it, they don’t offer an alternative. Also most people simply don’t care at all…
How does the store make money to pay those few % points? All consumers pay a percentage of the visa/MasterCard fee. So the prices stay the same in the store no matter the payment method.
Here in Portugal we have MB Way which is handled on a separate network. I understand that it might interoperate with Bancomat (Italy) and Bizum (Spain) also just since November, but I haven’t tried yet. Almost everybody in Portugal (except non-integrating expats) seem to use it, though there are spots here and there that refuse for reasons that are unclear to me.
Contact the ECB and demand a digital Euro
