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Comment by graemep | Hacker News Reader

At the moment Europe is getting more reliant on the US. There are new non-Us payment systems but the end user devices are Apple or Google controlled. Governments and banks are very eager to get rid of cash, to introduce digital ID etc. That all relies on American platforms.

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> That all relies on American platforms.

Totally true. The EU needs its own platforms, I hope that better regulated than their USA counterparts. Linux started in Europe, it should have been promoted more for internal usage. But privatization of state-owned companies made it ideologically impossible to push for it. Public good was seen as "bad" and "against business", I hope that the obvious failure of that policy makes it now a possibility to use Linux.

We used to. Contactless payments from my phone didn't require Google Wallet a few years ago, but now they do. My bank passes suddenly say VISA and have credit card numbers on them which they didn't have a few years ago. European banks are going in the completely wrong direction and need to reverse.

They will only do so if forced to by regulators, and so far regulators have shown no interest in doing it.

Your bank pass may support multiple systems. I think a lot of European cards (not all) are EC-Karten as well as one of the major credit card brands, and when you use it in an ATM, it uses neither system but directly contacts your bank.

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