Comment by bytesandbits | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bytesandbits | Hacker News Reader

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it might work, it worked for Thailand. Yet in my experience EU solutions either work very well or fail spectacularly. Particularly when the EU commission is the main driver, they generally become just bureaucratic poodles. However I think this one will work. Yet it will take many years to build (side effect of slow-moving EU) and many more years to adoption. In any case, forget about this for at least 5 years. I do welcome it, but I think it should have happened 15 years ago and I dont understand why it took so long. And I might still be proven wrong and this won't work at all, and yet I wouldn't be surprised. But again this worked for Thailand, so in theory this could be done in EU.

Many countries in EU will have a similar QR code payment system like Thailand based on SEPA. Slovakia is rolling out its own in 2026.

The problem is to standardize all these things built on top of SEPA to work across the UNION.

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

There is already a QR payment standard. You can pay a Thai-QR with a Malaysian Wallet.

PromptPay use is different from SEPA. My comment was meant that QR payments are already possible with SEPA in EU it's just there exist different systems built on top of SEPA which are not cross compatible and available across the member states.

My point is, there is a standard for QR payments (I think it's ISO 5201 but it was a long time since I dealt with that). Cross-border support will depend on the country/bank support; but theoretically if everyone adopt it, you'll be able to scan any country QR and then use your wallet to transfer funds (assuming your bank support cross-border payments).

I think ASEAN largely adhere to the standard though the cross-border part is limited to ASEAN.

> I dont understand why it took so long.

EU is pro-privatization to the core. Keeping the production of goods and services outside the democratic sphere is arguably the raison d'etre of EU/EEA.

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