Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world; and more!
Archived at: pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/pos…
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Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world; and more!
Archived at: pluralistic.net/2026/02/11/pos…
1/
oscarfalcon
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •*sigh*Ber nard
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •The Wero system is a rebrand of the existing Dutch iDeal system.
iDeal was created by a consortium of the Dutch banks under pressure from online retailers (ca. 2005). iDeal accounts for the vast majority of all online sales in NL.
Ever since my father had a restaurant I've hated credit-cards. For a small business, they skimmed 4 to 7% of sales and had all kinds of stupid demands (must display/advertise for the card, cannot demand a surplus for paying with CC...)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL
Filing Wero next to bankcard payments everywhere, no roaming fees for mobile, no border checks, etc. in Europe
e-commerce payment system
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)schnedan
in reply to *sigh*Ber nard • • •*sigh*Ber nard
in reply to schnedan • • •Depends on your bank. There are no iDeal or Wero apps. Online shop make you select your bank from a list. Whatever the bank's way of authorizing the payment is works.
Banks requiring an App (and a smartphone) is an issue, but a separate one.
Jurjen Heeck 🍋
in reply to *sigh*Ber nard • • •The Casual Critic
in reply to *sigh*Ber nard • • •*sigh*Ber nard
in reply to The Casual Critic • • •The Credit-Card transaction fees are a cost to all of society. They stack the odds towards large companies (that can negotiate the fee way down).
John Harris
in reply to *sigh*Ber nard • • •@brnrd @thecasualcritic Not only that, but the bank I'm with has partnered with a "security" company that about once a year flags my card for suspicious purchases I myself made.
They blocked my card when I ate at a restaurant a few days ago. I called them to resolve it, which meant proving to them that I was who I said I was by identifying which grocery store I went to two days before.
When I complained that they did this kind of often, the lady countered with, "It wouldn't happen if you didn't buy things on strange websites!" GRRAGRGH!
1. Where I buy things is my business and mine alone!
2. The "strange website" was Drive-Thru RPG!
will-h
in reply to The Casual Critic • • •The Casual Critic
in reply to will-h • • •@flangey @brnrd
That's true, but the difference is that if I want to pay a vendor in the UK, my options are (credit) card, PayPal or Google Pay. In the Netherlands, iDeal allows me to pay by directly debiting my current account.
I mean, I have some subscriptions that I pay via credit card because they don't even offer Direct Debit.
Mark Gjøl
in reply to The Casual Critic • • •@thecasualcritic @flangey @brnrd It's the same thing in Denmark. Since 1984 we have had the Dankort, which is a cheap debit card for payment. Now stores are pushing people to use that over visa and MasterCard because it's much cheaper for them to use.
We also have mobile pay now, which I again believe is cheaper due to the lack of requirement for a physical terminal. All you need is a sticker with your QR code.
Zelgaav
in reply to Mark Gjøl • • •Bernard Sheppard
in reply to Zelgaav • • •Lars Hansson
in reply to Mark Gjøl • • •@7
in reply to Lars Hansson • • •@romabysen @Gjoel @thecasualcritic @flangey @brnrd The main issue is the universality of credit cards. When I walk into a store in another country as a Pole—whether physically or online—credit cards work 99.9% of the time.
I don’t have to worry about whether it’s a Polish store requiring an activated (and bank-supported) BLIK, a Swedish one where I’d need Swish, or a Dutch one using iDEAL, and so on. I would need dozens of apps or bank accounts dedicated to different payment systems, whereas credit cards... they just work.
It doesn't matter if the store is based in Poland, the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, or Germany.
I believe this is the biggest obstacle preventing alternative payment methods from breaking through national borders.
At the same time, it’s why stores in every country almost always support credit cards alongside their 'local' payment variants. Until this changes, I don’t see an easy way to replace credit cards on a universal scale.
Georg Ruß
in reply to Mark Gjøl • • •Georg Weissenbacher
in reply to Georg Ruß • • •@datacyclist @thecasualcritic @flangey @brnrd @Gjoel
I guess the Austrian version is #Bluecode (bluecode.com/en - now with headquarters in Switzerland) - but having a different payment system for each European country won't cut it. To be fair, there seem to be efforts to make Twint and Bluecode compatible.
Integrated mobile payment | Bluecode
www.bluecode.comwill-h
in reply to *sigh*Ber nard • • •@brnrd the "can't charge a payment surcharge" is actually these days EU regulation (PSD2)
the "interchange fee cap" has been in place for a decade. Most bars and restaurants should be paying under a percent ...today at least in UK it's cheaper to take consumer credit cards then pay cash in the bank.
I think that more competion is good but bad data doesnt help
Tom
in reply to will-h • • •Daniel González
in reply to *sigh*Ber nard • • •en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizum
Spanish mobile payments system
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)EmoticonsJap
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •"and against a Brazilian judge for finding against the criminal dictator Jair Bolsonaro"
Not just a Brazilian "judge", but the Brazilian equivalent (Ministro do STF) of a SUPREME COURT JUSTICE
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
*sigh*Ber nard
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •www.commerzbank.de
heise.de/news/Commerzbank-schl…
Zweitgrößte Privatbank stärkt europäische Bezahl-App Wero
dpa (heise online)FluffyBunnikins
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Cory Doctorow reshared this.
Lotneuv
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •This is excellent news.
Although for me personally paying with credit cards is not the killer feature but to use it as a collateral (not sure its the right word - sorry non-native here). I mean reserving hotels, renting bikes or cars, charging EVs, all require attaching credit card to an account of sorts for *future* payments. I am not aware of any european solution for this use case.