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How to get rid of Mastercard and Visa? (feddit.org)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by minilemmy@feddit.org to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk

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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

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[-] knightly@pawb.social 12 points 1 month ago

"Going cashless" is a scam designed to rake in payment processing fees from an entire economy. Cash is the enemy to these companies because it's a form of payment they can't profit from.

If it isn't an option, then you should refuse to do business as much as possible. Take your money out of their hands.

[-] fxdave@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Cashless is also a way to stop black market

[-] knightly@pawb.social 3 points 1 month ago

No it isn't, it just drives black marketeers to other forms of currency.

[-] fxdave@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

hmm you're right

[-] cocolowlander@feddit.nl 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Good thing iDEAL payment system is part of EU payment initiative and has some of the lowest fees you'll see in the world. Grocery stores for example will refuse Credit Cards from Visa and Mastercard, but they'll take iDEAL payment in the Netherlands. Netherlands is not the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative

https://www.ideal.nl/en/ideal-fees

[-] knightly@pawb.social 2 points 1 month ago

I'm not saying it isn't possible for some places that aren't the USA to set up a publicly owned payment processing network that both costs and sucks less, but the privacy risks are inherent to the technology.

this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025

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