How the fuck does Europe not have it's own payment system yet?
For one, visa and all the other US payment systems, suuuuuck. I never understood why nobody came up with something better, this just seems lazyness.
Buy hey, better late than never
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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Canada seriously needs this too. While we do have Interac for debit I much prefer the safety of a credit card after several relatives have had their cards skimmed etc
Hell, if they started with a "Canada only" card I'd be 100% ok with that as my primary
The advantage of Visa/Mastercard is that they work anywhere.
Europeans are rich and like to travel all over the world, so they want their cards to work everywhere too. Or order stuff online from abroad. Why bother using some local payment processor that barely works if you can just use your Visa card?
Independent payment systems only work in countries that are poor (where people don't travel or buy stuff from abroad) and/or isolated by sanctions or internal restrictions.
the EU has the power to legislate that their version be offered in a non-discriminatory way anywhere cards with comparable fees are offered… similar to requirements to accept Euros etc
i could for sure see that having a “globally” requirement tacked onto it, arguing that if it’s implemented in Europe and is comparable or better for fees then it’s discriminatory rather than economic to not offer it elsewhere
I have high hopes for the Digital Euro.
To have a digital payment medium that is issued by the central bank and can be exchanged without fees as a 1:1 digital equipment of cash would be amazing and go beyond just replacing American credit card providers.
If they do it like the Brazilian Pix, there's a good chance it'll be a success.
That's something different, that's what Wero is trying to achieve in Europe. But the Digital Euro goes well beyond what Pix does.
We’ve had Twint for over a decade in Switzerland and it’s adopted everywhere here, I have no idea why every country is cooking their own new system right now.
Pick one that works already and roll it out on the whole continent, it’s not that hard.
In NZ we've had electronic card payments outside of the credit card system for about 40-something years.
It just took a long time to catch up to online payments, but it's slowly getting there.
That's Wero. It's basically iDEAL in a new jacket.
And iDEAL is really good. Everyone in the Netherlands uses it.
I think every country has its own, Italy has the Bancomat network for example - but you can't pay online with it. Then we have Satispay, which works like in China, with QR codes. Satispay is quite huge in Italy.
Because Switzerland is not in the EU and the ECB won't let that happen. They'd rather have the yanks ripping them off than allow real competition.
Protectionism sucks.
That's a ridiculous claim as several EU countries have their own systems, which they are trying to make interoperable between them in some cases or merge into Wero in others.
I'm pretty sure it's Switzerland that doesn't want to join the EU and not the other way around
Other countries also have their own systems since long.. MBway in Portugal is also more than a decade old.
Isn't Twint still going through Visa for the in-store purchase? I remember reading it somewhere, but can't find the source for it unfortunately, but in general whenever it is an option I prefer that over other means of payment, the only strange thing is having a separate twint app for each bank lol
Nope, Twint is connected directly to your Bank. Neither Visa, nor Mastercard nor anyone else is playing middleman. Every Swiss Bank has their own Twint App which directly connects to your account.
When you pay at a store or person to person with Twint it’s a direct transaction.
Paywalled, and archive.is doesn't seem to work for this site
Isn't that what WERU is all about; "The service competes with PayPal, credit cards and similar services. "?
It's WERO and afaik they don't issue cards. If you want to make in-store payments you're stuck with visa of mastercard.
visa of mastercard.
If I understand correctly that will be all phased out. #e quote
What will be?
I just edited my comment for clarity.
You would be helping the world by doing this. Until the huge corporations start hurting, he will keep getting away with most of his shit.
Taiwan let's you use your metro card to buy stuff at 711. Seems reasonable to expand that out
Portugal already has their own payment processor, even started being exported to Romania
We need a cross-EU one. WERO and Gnu Taler seem like the best candidates. Honestly, Gnu Taler will probably be ignored because banks can't take advantage by invading privacy.
I’d actually rather see many federated solutions with cross-EU interoperability instead of making yet another payment monopoly
Isn't WERO built aroung SEPA Instant Credit Transfer?
Gnu Taler seems really interesting, if the trial in Switzerland goes well it might have a chance. I'm still hopeful we can have nice things.
Huh, Taler sounds interesting. How does it prevent doublespends?
Why not both? Monopolies for banking aren't a great idea.
Wasn’t that already explained?
Honestly, Gnu Taler will probably be ignored because banks can't take advantage by invading privacy.
They already have it, Gnu Taler.