Why does USA not have a system like UPI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface)? It simpler, easier and cheaper (mostly free).
That UPI was agreed upon by enough people was a happy accident for India.
However, UPI currently has a lot of problems. Number one is that to use UPI as a payment method for your product you have to integrate with one of India's banks, which in my experience are almost uniformly technically very bad. They provide almost no documentation, have frequent and often severe service outages, and don't even come close to meeting their availability SLAs. I'm sure over time it will improve but as it stands many of India's banks are not technically capable enough to support UPI with the level of reliability that most businesses require.
what you mention as a disadvantage is the biggest advantage. cut out the card men.
Banks' technical prowess will catch up. That is the solution. Not introducing a middle man just because he is technically better now.
Cut out the middle men, the card companies, and suddenly everything is 2-3% cheaper, and faster, and simpler.
Anyways, it's about how much money you're willing to spend for trust/safety/risk-mitigation/speed.
Cost of item - $100
$100.05 - pay via Bitcoin. In case of fraud, suck it up.
$102 - pay via Bank. In case of fraud, complain to bank, who are slow to resolve it.
$105 - pay via CC, (and pay them via Bank). In case of fraud, complain to CC company, who are faster in resolving it.
Both Bank and CC are basically an escrow service. One provides a bit more security than other, and correspondingly charges more for it.
If you're OK with not needing that security, cut out the middle men.
Going along your analogy lines, cut out even the Bitcoin middle man, or any kind of currency, and directly barter/trade goods.
Cost of item: $100
SEPA: $100.00 (<15 seconds, irreversible)
GiroCard: $100.13 (< 5 seconds, medium to reverse)
Bitcoin: $100.57 (< 20 min, irreversible)
Bitcoin (SegWit): $100.41 (< 20min, irreversible)
MasterCard/VISA: $102.50 (< 30 days, easy to reverse)
Anycase, I'm in favor of the bank-bank Indian UPI & German SEPA system.
And yes, I definitely trust million of men who are constantly checking each other, rather than 10 bankers who found out that sticking together makes them more money.
That fraud argument is a double edged sword because I might be on the receiving side and falsely accused of fraud as any small business hit with chargebacks would confirm. When it's sent, it's sent, that's how it should be, no backsies. In the CC world you never know. Plus there are also escrows if you really need them, except unlike in banking world, Bitcoin escrow won't force you to eat a 30% haircut on your savings account when the bankers fuck up the whole economy while paying themselves big bonuses.
Normal SEPA transfers are mandated to be free and < 24 hours, and SEPA-ICT transfers are mandated to be < 1.5€ and < 15 seconds, but most banks implement those for free.
As you can freely choose any bank in the EU, you might want to consider German Commerzbank, which implements free < 15 seconds transfers to any other SEPA bank (except for student accounts, those have to pay 1.50€ for those transactions).
Sure, the banks should do the chargeback/fraud management, but the IT interface toward the merchants should be completely standardized.