We could add credit cards to the Interac system.

At least most European banks are happy to cut out the American middlemen (Visa and Mastercard) since they're eating part of the cost, and we already have the infrastructure in place and working, it's called "instant SEPA bank transfer", most newer accounts offer it for free. The problem is the lack of political will to accelerate that indipendence and to stop hemorraging money (roughly 0.5% per transaction!)

Then as people learn to use it they'll hopefully also stop using Paypal (another American company) when sending money to someone, or getting tracked in general every single time they use their debit card.

Digital euro is the solution

There's also credit unions.

Knowing your nationality, some Canadian provinces do have a public bank too, like ATB in Alberta.

agreed, this is really low hanging fruit for fixing society in general- services (banking but also insurance (remember Obama's failed public option)) that everyone needs but are privately run should have competition run by the government that is publicly funded and run with the goal of break-even instead of for profit.

Let the for profit ones try to find reasons to exist then!

Other candidates for a public option: ISPs, ride-sharing services, credit rating agencies, etc etc

The Cali data companies will be in for a shock when they suddenly have to comply with any regulation, let alone the GDPR

Everyone and their cousins have their own platform. That's the issue. No one wants to standardize on someone else's alternative so the incumbents reign supreme.

The crux is having credit and being able to put blocks on it - say for renting cars.

But I am all for a European alternative. Bring it

Same in Germany with the girocard system. Key feature is that there's no real intermediary, it's a standard the banking sector came up with to easily authorise ordinary bank transfers. Online shopping was never an issue in Germany push come to shove you just wire them the money.

And I have no fucking idea why the EPI is launching a whole phone-based system instead/before standardising debit card infrastructure. That app offers literally nothing that I can't already do with my card and bank app on my phone short of a wallet and why the hell would I want that I already have a giro account. And why would I want to send money to a telephone number instead of an IBAN. What kind of stuff are those people on that they think that's a feature.

But at least the general structure of the EPI is similar to how girocard came about: A consortium of banks, public, cooperative, private, coming up with interoperability standards. Germany has like 1400 banks (and that's after a lot of mergers), most of them only serving a district or larger town and surrounding villages for those there was never an alternative to working with each other and the over-regional banks jumped on to not be left out.

Sometimes, all you need is some marketing. E.g. it's been possible to print out a QR code with your account info so you can receive transactions at a flea market for ages (in lieu of having your phone display it and people scanning from there), and ever since SEPA instant payment it's basically cash, as far as the seller is concerned.

I can recommend the Aquired Podcast Episode. A 3h long Story of how VISA became the world leader and how much profit they make year over year. It is craaaaazy. We need to get rid of Visa and other US bases payment providers ASAP!

They don't get paid directly, just with your data.

If they realy want to be innovative they should use blockchain

Lol

I can already send money instantly, for free, through SEPA without a singular private company earning a cut or tracking me.

A bank account is needed, but there are thousands to choose from, and in the EU by law they cannot refuse to open a basic account for a private EU citizen.

Why should we use Wero/Revolut/Venmo/whatever instead? Intercompatibility within just one network means another network effect, that does not look like a long term solution to me. Just like Telegram, though very convenient to use with a nice UI, is no solution to Whatsapp.

Wero seems to be solving the problem of copy-pasting our IBAN. What if any bank app would just recognise a standardised QR code with that data? Who would then subscribe to Wero with a phone number and email and risk getting scammed or blocked for any random reason?

In Portugal we have an app called MBWAY, it's a national fast payment service. with that we can send money just with phone number, withdrawal from atms an pay using qr code. I've heard they are already interconnected with their counterpart in Italy and Spain

I have a friend who works on this project. Still years away, but they are at least thinking very hard of not having US dependencies since the last months. I don't have much trust in some people involved though (exactly because for many this was not an issue until a few weeks ago).

China ist not the answer.