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Why create a new kind of "digital euro" instead of a public credit card network? Why create entirely new tech?
Because card networks are a mess and have far too complex fee structures.
Yah the fee structures are all that needs to be changed. That's just needs new contracts, not new tech.
ECB specifies the legal framework for digital euro which is tech-agnostic. The current plan is that it would be possible to use plastic card, web browser with username+password, smart watch, retail terminal or any future technology with digital euro.
I guess the username+password part is new, but I'm not sure it's enough of a reason to invent a whole new payment system. Normal CC networks do all the rest already.
The Euronews report lists the reasons:
I did read all that. I'm all for creating a public way around the corporate payment networks.
What I mean is, one could just create a public charge card network that works the same way, with the same infrastructure that Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, Diner's Club, etc all use. All that would change are the fee structures everyone pays. I don't see the need to reinvent the wheel here.
Visa and co. mostly don't work on modern mobile phones. Digital euro strives to replace apple pay and google pay as well. Visa and co. also have lot of redundant functions like payment by credit, solvency assessment, cash back rewards, travel points and purchase protections. Digital euro doesn't have that and as a consequence, it doesn't need to intrude into customer's privacy as much as credit card companies do. Nor does it incur the vast costs associated with credit recuperation on banks.
Never had a problem. Not sure what that means
The networks don't do credit, or cash back rewards, points and the like. That's not Visa and friends. Those are offered by the banks who back the accounts. Debit cards don't have those options and work exactly the same as far as the charge network is concerned.
The public network doesn't have to worry about any of that. People could use it with credit, debit, or charge cards whatever they wanted.
It means that you can't transmit card details to a terminal through NFC. In general, Apple, Google, Xiaomi and co. push their own payment solutions (Apple pay, Xiaomi pay) and block use of NFC by other parties.
I was using a short-hand language with the assumption that You understand that we are not talking about technological implementation. So to unpack my statements for You: Visa and co. mandate that banks and other financial providers implement credit, cash back or customer protection. ECB in their proposal of D€ does not mandate such functionality. In fact, the current proposal prevents implementation of such features. In sum, D€ is a different financial scheme than credit card schemes by Visa and co. and D€ is the less costly (not mandatory implementation of credit, cash back etc.) and more privacy-oriented scheme of the two.
You listed AmEx previously and AmEx doesn't do debit cards. So I assumed You want to talk about credit card networks. Visa and Mastercard's "debit" cards are deferred-debit cards. Specification of D€ is more akin to prepaid cards. So again, there are differences and I'm not sure what kind of "public network" You are arguing for.
In general, Visa and co. provide in parallel a large set of (often competing) financial transaction tools. Mostly, they haven't invented anything, they just try to stay relevant in the rapidly evolving environment of financial-transaction providers. Especially, in case of digital wallets they are lagging behind. ECB can't afford that.
That's the confusion. I'm only talking about technology.
I'm not seeing much of a reason to build an entirely new set of tech for this payment system.
Nearly everything you mention can be done with the same existing tech the other card networks do. You only need different contracts for the connected banks, retailers, and customers.
The closest you mention to a reason for new technology is the phone based NFC payments. That could solved with their own NFC payments app. That could be done by just making a new NFC wallet app, which would be great! But doesn't require a whole new currency and payment network protocol.
The "transactions will be untraceable" thing seems to be new?
Oh! Yah, that's plenty of reason. Though I have doubts.
Credit card network is not a thing without traditional banks taking part, these kind of for-profit entities generally don't play well with public good/open source things. Right now it looks both are being worked on (a for profit thing called Wero and a public good thing called the digital euro) and i suppose that it isn't a bad thing we get both instead of either.
Nobody likes the charge card networks. They charge fees to nearly everyone. Banks would jump on a fee free alternative.