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Comment by jangxx | Hacker News Reader

We might be getting something soon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_euro

Europe spends way too much time and money on various Fintech pet projects. There's the Digital Euro and then there's Wero and Target and a bunch of other shit that doesn't reach consumer scale usage or attention.

Anything else?

And your point is what? That nothing should ever be investigated, trials, or invested in until it has as you call it "consumer scale useage".

The EU is not perfect, but these kind of black and white comments highlight why it can be slow to align everyone to get on board with an idea. The empty vessle makes the most noise.

No, my point is to focus on one thing and get it done right. The right time to build an EU-wide payments processor was pre-COVID, as is the case with Pix, UPI, WeChat Pay, etc. If developing countries can build one over the course of a decade, what stopped the EU? Project managers and CV padding bureaucrats who really weren't serious about doing a good job. Compare that to the concerted efforts by the central banks in India and Brazil to actually work with the private sector to build out this system.

The EU has had the plumbing needed for this since at least 2 decades, yet has not managed to create this.

Again, that's a silly argument, when you're saying "It should have been done before" but at the same time saying "Europe spends way too much time and money on various Fintech pet projects."

> If developing countries can build one over the course of a decade

What countries are you talking about ? The EU countries have some, we also have instant IBAN transfers without any payment processor, we have PCI compliance in all banks to allow it. This feels like another example of you not knowing what you're talking about when you say 'The EU has had the plumbing needed for this since at least 2 decades, yet has not managed to create this.'.

The foundations to never rely on payment processors is already there, now we need to remove the dependancy on payments like visa and mastercard because of nescessity. And as someone above posted, it in progress, it will be done standardised across the entire EU, in Brazil, it's one country.

Edit : There was also never a demand for it because the EU reasonably assumed it could rely on US partners to cover areas in which the EU didn't focus. Only recently those priorities changed, politics has that effect here of dealing with the most pressing issues and not those that are lobbied for the hardest.

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