Now that the US sees the EU as a potential enemy, Europe has moved to ensure its financial system can never be sanctioned or shut down; something the US has done to Russia, Cuba, and Iran.
By late 2025, efforts centered on the Digital Euro, a nonprofit payment system run by the European Central Bank (like euro cash). Due by 2030, it would offer lower fees and quickly replace much Visa and Mastercard usage. While still in development, other solutions arrived sooner. Instant bank-to-bank payments, bypassing cards, are expanding rapidly. In February, 130 million users across 13 national systems were linked in a Europe-wide network aiming to cover all of Europe. Fees are a fraction of Visa/Mastercard, though unlike the Digital Euro, it’s not yet available as a debit card; only online and on phones.
The EU also wants to decouple from US software and is preparing its own alternative to Microsoft Office.
Europe Is Breaking Up With Visa and Mastercard — and It’s a $24 Trillion Problem
Europe builds Microsoft-alternative ‘Euro-Office’ to reclaim digital sovereignty
It is high time that a European, cross-border payment service was established. This should have happened decades ago.
To me, a regulated payment standard like UPI in India seems to make the most sense. But I also find decentralized approaches, such as the GNU Taler, interesting.
Two thing are important, though: This can’t happen fast enough, and under no circumstances should we rely on private companies again.
We’re kind of there?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
We just need to expand it to more countries.
I already use wero. However, I wasn’t aware that this is already a cross-border initiative and could develop into a Europe-wide service.
Thank you very much for the info!
Wero is owned by European big banks. That’s a slight improvement over US multinationals, but in an ideal world I would like my payment processor to be non-profit and owned by the people.
Bancomat, Bizum, Wero, MB Way, Vipps etc. all need to be interoperable
I have wero automatically in my bank app, France.
It’s far inferior to PayPal. Not all banks support it. Far less support by shops. No buyer protection.
It’s a start, though. If you are waiting for the perfect replacement to magically appear, it’s never going to happen. Widespread shop support takes time too.
Sure. Wero is just an alias to an IBAN. It doesn’t have any of the very useful features of PayPal or a credit card. It’s half assed and unattractive. An alternative that only has „we‘re European“ as a feature is not good enough. I don’t think it will succeed because of that.
I use Wero for basically everything and don’t have any problems with it. Maybe I don’t buy from companies that are dodgy enough? 🤔
It never happened because governments are corrupted and don’t serve the public.
It didn’t happen in the past because all software companies were monopolies, i.e. google, microsoft. and the same applied to banking.
that’s changing now.
Alternatives to these monopolies have always been around, at the government they use special encrypted computers and phones to make sure their own communications and data is secure.