"It didn’t go unnoticed in Frankfurt that Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in Russia in March 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine……Thirteen of the 20 countries in the euro have no domestic card scheme. You use an international operator, or you pay in cash."
It hasn't gone unnoticed that the US is threatening to invade an EU country's (Denmark) territory, either. Would a future President Trump or President Vance threaten to shut down European financial infrastructure if it opposes an annexation of Greenland? Who knows, but better to take away that opportunity for leverage.
The plan is that you can link it to your bank account or open a special account at post offices throughout the EU. There will be phone apps for payments and digital Euro debit cards. Visa/Mastercard & Apple/Google Pay typically charge 3% fees; the digital Euro will have none. That will ensure it is speedily adopted by retailers and quickly supplants the US providers. Also worth noting its technology will be 100% European only, leaving zero vulnerability/leverage to non-Europeans.
Digital euro: what it is and how we will use the new form of cash - The European Central Bank is determined to break the US grip on card payments
It'll be interesting to see how they'll handle steamy steam games. The whole steam and itch deplatforming saga was kicked off by Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.
Won’t have any effect as long as they need to have Visa and Mastercard for other territories. In Europe you can already pay with European payment systems on Steam like iDeal (Dutch) and Trustly (Swedish) and those porn games still got removed in the territories that have those payment options.
Yes, but if that european payment provider is less strict, maybe other platforms can fill that gap.
Considering the push for stuff like chat control and the increasingly global lock down on "obscenity":
They'll handle it according to plan.
Like, good. Hurt the US's soft power. But people really should be looking even a foot in front of their faces on this.
Brazil has PIX and steam accepts it, no problems. (pix is a government created payment method that has 0 fees and is basically instant, you never wait for confirmation)
Doesn't help us in AU unfortunately