European payments groups join forces to challenge US dominance | Hacker News Reader

European payments groups join forces to challenge US dominance

rte.ie

63 pointsvrganj83 comments

These all require Google or Apple devices both by the seller and the buyer. Wero explicitly does not even support non-Google Android devices.

I'm not sure that replacing Visa and MasterCard is really that big of a sovereignty move considering the pervasive dominance American mobile OS tech has. It's a much harder ecosystem to replace.

You can't be serious. Getting rid of the need to pass purchases through these two American behemoths will be a huge step in the right direction.

A step in an easily avoidable muddy puddle

Heartily agree, even for Americans. I realize there's economies of scale and network effects, I'm not a libertarian, but the US electronic money situation is very bad. No pressure to innovate, be secure, be anonymous, and a small number of business people (out of touch CxOs) arbitrarily debank people and market segments.

Updating an app to not require the Play Store is a lot easier than switching payment provider backend.

Wero can fix the dependency on Google in a day, I don't think the dependency on Google is as bad as the broader dependency on Mastercard/Visa is.

That said, I'd much prefer a European implementation of the same remote attestation APIs that Google uses to convince payment processors that phones can be trusted to manage finances.

On iOS you don't really have a choice so until someone runs Linux on an iPhone, iPhone users are just screwed.

> to convince payment processors that phones can be trusted to manage finances

Phones can NOT be trusted to manage finances. They should issue EU credit/debit cards instead.

Yep, they can allow GrapheneOS, right now. So let's pressure them into doing that.

> I'd much prefer a European implementation of the same remote attestation APIs that Google uses to convince payment processors that phones can be trusted to manage finances.

You're basically talking about "government Android phone" since it is built into the chips on the device.

I wonder how 330 million average Europeans will respond to not being able to use iPhones or Google Android phones anymore because they are instead being forced to use "government Android phone" for safety from USA.

I think they'll actually just revolt against the government instead

Nobody's gonna revolt for Big Tech, man. Be real.

You underestimate how much people love their iPhones, and how much they will hate being forced to use "government Android phone" instead

Not to mention that the EU seems to be incapable of actually building usable software, let alone a whole mobile OS ecosystem

https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-microsoft-teams-alternati...

You mean Huawei? Europeans are ok with that, kernel being encrypted or not.

You've got to start somewhere. You peel each layer off the dependency stack one at a time.

> I'm not sure that replacing Visa and MasterCard is really that big of a sovereignty move considering the pervasive dominance American mobile OS tech has

So 'having an apple or Google phone' is equivalent to you to 'have every individual payment processed by visa/mastercard'?

Processing a payment means knowing who sent what to whom. I'm sure you don't care if I know what phone you have. But can I see every bank transaction you make? Every single purchase? No biggie, right?

Aside from the fact that this is maybe the next dependency to drop.

Once you have payment processing in-house, the decision of what devices to support is yours to make.

If you don't, two lock-ins and network effects reinforce each other.

They don't though, unless I'm missing something stupid there is parity across all national options. And here for example the bank itself has Bancomat AND Visa as an option to pay by at a POS or online etc.

This will allow me to use my card online with a merchant in Germany for example and use my Bancomat process (whatever the new interface is called) will be the gateway.

The hardware is harder to replace, but payment systems aren’t intrinsically tied to the operating systems, yet, except for encryption , which is handled on-device.

So many people commenting that seem to miss what this is. It's the merging of national systems to simply allow a second option. Meaning no influence oversize from the duopoly. See steam news with visa for an example of then throwing their weight.

Visit most major economies outside the west and you find non visa ways to pay. Alipay, PayNow, UPI, PayPay, Pix etc.

Right, and now the EU will have a consolidated one. It's a clear great step!

It's all based on phone apps, replacing Visa/Mastercard dependency with Apple and Google dependency. Far worse for privacy IMO.

Not sure it could be worse for privacy but even it was it would still stop Visa and Mastercard from refusing to carry payments.

That's exactly what they did to high profile European judges. You can't pull that stunt and expect to get away with it long term.

https://www.euronews.com/2026/02/18/us-sanctions-turn-intern...

No it's not. Here in Italy your debit card allows you to pay by bancomat or Visa.

Apple and Google are bound to Visa/Mastercard's rules. There is basically no EC without the V/M, and Apple and Google won't be happy just selling hardware. How are you paying for your apps and services ?

Looking at it from the privacy lens doesn't help when it's a matter of directly controlling the money flow.

is Wero based on apps? iDeal only involves the banking app for me, the iDeal part is just a website

Nevertheless, that app could be one day running with F-Droid and such... or that's what I dream. The infrastructure is only one piece of the huge dependency puzzle.

With GDPR I think it sill will be much much better that what VISA/Mastercard keeps on your activities.

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

Well... no so much in practice. My bank automatically enrolled my personal phone number into the system. I asked them to remove it 2 months ago. One month ago I received a reply that they're working on it. I may be the only person in this country that asked for this - they're now probably thinking which is cheaper: to pay the GDPR fine, repeatedly, or patch their banking software and re-certify it, or maybe refuse to have me as their client.

Anyway, I don't know if you actually read GDPR, but the government (& various agencies) and the bank are both exempted from GDPR. They will all know everything I bought through this system, from where and at what price.

I use this system daily. It's the spanish/european venmo. In some countries all banks apps are in this system, so it shows which phone contacts are in the system and you can send or request money through that.

It's just this nice thing for sending money. Why are you all losing your marbles here?

One thing I'd like to check: what are the actual exclusion rules for these systems? The Visa/MC threat to anything deemed vaguely adult content is well documented, but what is and is not allowed on Wero?

Attempt number 2000?

Mastercard pretty much depended on Eurocard/Europay for it's European reach (and vice versa) before the 2 merged, European institutions didn't have a problem selling out important infrastructure because Europeans overall trusted American stability and cooperation.

Yes we did before the orange terror clown.

Attempt at ... what? All the national payment systems are already working. They're now interconnecting them.

And this seems to be another attempt at that. We already had the European Payments Initiative (with Wero), and now they are starting the European Network for Payments. Sounds like the People's Front of Judea vs. the Judean People's Front.

Edit: There was also the Euro Alliance of Payment Schemes

This is essentially taking the equivalent of UPI EU-wide.

UPI now interoperates with other equivalent new payment platforms in Asia.

They could easily permit GrapheneOS without compromising on security. Not doing so is either a sign of gross incompetence or plain malice.

I remember when there was Eurocard/Mastercard...

And the benefits for users would be?

Not being under the heel of a US financial Duopoly when their dear leader decides to tell them to charge 100%.

Regional Financial autonomy is a very attractive benefit.

Probably lower prices since there’s competition between payment processors

Usually, a product that costs $100 costs me the same $100 regardless of the payment processors involved (and $100 cash when none are involved), so I can't see where "lower prices for consumers" could come from.

I've seen few places accepting only cash or cards from a local payment processor. And it looks like local payment processor takes about 0.16% from each transaction.

So I assume that if they were accepting more expensive cards, they might've increase the price of the $100.16 product for me, to offset their costs.

And yes, I also heard that payment processors have rules that require merchants to have the same price no matter what payment processor (or cash) customer will choose.

We seem to agree that "lower prices" have no place to come from. If "lower prices" can't happen, what are the benefits to users now?

There's already competition between payment processors, and not lower prices.

Isn't it actually "competition" in the visa/mastercard case?

There are many other options already besides Visa and Mastercard. What I'm asking and nobody wants to answer is what the benefits for users are. The first thing you should think about when making a new product or service.

People are only answering me here with benefits for European politicians and their sovereignty. That's alright. But what I'm asking about is benefits for the users.

For example, Visa and Mastercard offer fraud protection to the users, and many card emitters offer cashback to their users. Can this new European system offer this? If not, why not? Can they offer something else which benefits the user over current providers?

> What I'm asking and nobody wants to answer is what the benefits for users are.

I answered that it will lower prices, does that not count as a benefit to users?

Even if merchants pay the processing fees, those prices are inevitably passed onto their customers. With more competition among payment processors there will be pressure to lower processing fees.

All of this happens automatically. It’s the beauty of markets.

I’ll rephrase your own question in a different way that I think actually supports my point: Since there is no difference, as a product, between visa, Mastercard, and this new European alliance, then there is very little reason to not want more competition.

Payment processing is essentially a commodity in this sense. It’s all the same, with the differentiator being supply. If we increase the supply the price will go down. That’s it. It should honestly be stupid to not want a European alternative.

The problem with your argument is that the price to the consumer stays the same, regardless of the payment processor involved (or cash when none are involved.) These are the rules set by payment processors. With these rules, the prices will stay the same with any amount of the supply. If these rules are changed, all payment processors will suffer in cash's favour, and as governments oppose cash-based economy for tax maximisation, the change of the rules is unlikely.

We may be talking past each other. If card processing costs a business money, that cost is passed onto the consumer. It therefore stands to reason that the converse is also true with savings. The question remaining is just at what time scale.

I think you’re taking about a single transaction in the near future, whereas I’m talking about the effects which are felt, in aggregate, over a long period of time. Absolutely things will get slightly cheaper.

Currently, a cost of "something" is:

1. 100€ if paid with cash

2. 100€ if paid with sovereign-European low-cost GPDR-compliant ISO-certified processor

3. 100€ if paid with American expensive monopoly behemoth Visa/MC.

Currently, it stands to reason to pay with Visa/MC and not bother with carrying cash or switching from Visa/MC to anything else.

In the future, it might be that the cost of the same "something" is:

1. 99.5€ if paid with cash

2. 100€ if paid with sovereign-European low-cost GPDR-compliant ISO-certified processor

3. 102€ if paid with American expensive monopoly behemoth Visa/MC. (Note: Visa/MC explicitly prohibit this.)

If this is predictable and repeatable, everyone needs to change their customer habits. It stands to reason that the change would be to carry cash.

The price difference would have to be significantly more than 1 to 3% to justify the inconvenience of carrying around cash again for me as a consumer for the things I don't buy online. Also don't underestimate the benefits of not dealing with cash for the merchants either. After cash usage almost vanishing completely they made it mandatory to accept cash a couple of years ago in Norway in an attempt to keep the infrastructure on life support in case of crisis (but still illegal for big transactions like cars and houses because something something crime). At least one hairdresser chain notably resolved it by only accepting pre booked appointments, which you could only get along pre paying for them in an app.

There are not many other options already besides Visa/MC for their payment network, not the branding. Interbank account transfers with instant settlement are clumsy.

The change is that newer financial systems, using ISO20022, run at bank level, allow instant net settlement between individual accounts, not just settlement at the bank level.

So the benefits to merchants/customers compared to Visa/MC:

Merchants

* Interchange is much cheaper, because the banks transact via the central clearing house which is usually sponsored by the country's reserve bank

* It allows for the merchant to set up direct debit payment structures that allow for things like subscriptions and other payments to be made with similar network and transaction fee savings

* It has all of the advantages of EFT and CC payments

* It can use QR codes, email addresses, and mobile numbers as identifiers, so it is much easier to pass on payment details. Merchants can operate with just a printed QR code, verifying payment on the customer's mobile.

Customers

* Banks can offer all of the same "perks" of credit cards, like lines of credit, branding, account holder offers.

* They can offer things like product insurance and return protection and similar consumer protections.

The "rails" are much cheaper to run and suits a 21st century financial system and is easier and more secure for consumers.

What banks "can offer" is irrelevant until they offer it in practice.

As a customer, I have zero interest in paying for my lunch via "QR codes, email addresses, and mobile numbers" when I can do it with near-zero friction with a double-click on a phone (funded by a credit card), or with a tap or swipe of the credit card. I also have better protections. Switching costs are non-zero and I will only switch if there are some substantial benefits; pure "feature parity" is a reason to not switch.

The benefits to merchants are tangential to me, but there is a substantial downside of all the merchants having to do integration with an additional system.

These systems have been rolling out across Asia and EU and other places.

If CCs were the system of the last 75 years to allow quick transactions, these systems are the next generation.

The US is a specific banking market that has a very embedded structure, regulation, and players. Other nations have a more flexible financial system that allows for services to develop that are better than the existing Visa/MC duopoly.

This is just the next step of allowing them to operate cross-border/jurisdiction.

The fact that you have zero interest does not mean there are many small merchants and customers that find the ability to easily transfer money instantly with very low fees and the same safety as cash is a very useful service.

One benefit to users is they can’t be debanked at the whim of a lawless orange dickhead from a country outside the EU.

Instant settlement. The new systems usually run at the level of the reserve currency, or highest national bank.

In Australia the system is the NPP, and the public face is Osko/PayID, so you can use an email or mobile identifier to instantly transfer money between people's accounts. Australia is rolling out PayTo, which is a B2C form of direct debit, which is revocable by the customer but allows for subscriptions and other payments.

The next step will be offering a bank account with PayID/PayTo, a contactless form of payment stored in a Google/Apple/Samsung Wallet, and a line of credit.

Which is all that a credit card is.

This announcement is about similar national systems evolving into cross-European payments. So an instant payment from a French bank account to a Spanish bank account via contactless payment terminal without using the Visa/MC "rails". In Thailand it's promptpay

Being able to pay across Europe with the systems they already have instead of only being able to use them in their own country.

You can already do that with Visa and Mastercard and IBAN.

Not everyone.

https://www.irishtimes.com/world/us/2025/12/12/its-surreal-u...

This is probably what pushed them to accelerate the implementation.

American companies at the behest of American leadership which has turned is back on free trade and has weaponised trade against its allies.

Removing reliance on American tooling is an essential security matter, it's going to take some time to unpick 80 years of interdependence though.

You can't convince millions of users to switch from one payment method to another by the "weaponised" and "reliance" and "essential security" arguments. These arguments might work on me but not on my parents nor my children (who do not care much about these but do care about having a universally accepted payment method which is easy and safe to use.)

The question here is "what is the benefit to individual users," not "what is the benefit to the users community as a whole."

Yet pretty much every country uses non visa/mastercard as a first line payment and they are insanely popular.

…within that specific country.

I know that JCB exists in Japan and Mir exists in Russia, but never saw them accepted anywhere except these countries respectively.

That is precisely what this submission is about. They're making these local systems within Europe interoperable.

I saw a massive advert this week in Singapore for UPI, "pay like you do in India". Systems like Alipay are accepted very widely too.

Yeah, but the point is to be able to do it without Visa and Mastercard.

IBAN, I'll grant you. But it's not exactly intuitive.

I understand that this is the point, but what is the benefit for users?

In case of IBAN: Wero is just another user/function layer on top of SEPA, adding things like "sent money by email or phone number", as they are the aggregator putting this function live,since this functionality was not supposed to be part of SEPA standard.

Challenging US dominance by implementing your European payment platform on AWS? Weird take…

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