this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2025
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The governor of the Central Bank of Sweden comments our payment systems.

Hereโ€™s an AI translation of the text into English:

"Given the geopolitical situation, it is important to create European systems in a number of areas. This is according to Riksbank Governor Erik Thedรฉen in an interview with Ekotโ€™s Saturday program, where he emphasizes that Swedenโ€™s payment systems should not be as dependent on the USA as they have been. As an example, he points out that the two dominant credit card issuers, Mastercard and Visa, are American. 'It is probably wise to consider that we should also have European or Swedish systems that function in case the American ones do not,' he says. According to the central bank governor, Swish is 'a certain complement.' He also highlights that other countries, such as Denmark, have their own national credit cards."

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[โ€“] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 2 points 20 hours ago

Not European, but here's a structure that I think would be best (for all currencies, European or not).

Central bank creates a nationalised corporation "National payments processor". Loans out money to NPP to create a copyleft MasterCard competitor.

NPP's objectives are to reduce interchange fees, establish sovereignty in this space while keeping transactions secure.

Now, from what I understand, a retailer cannot charge different rates for different payment processors. Meaning, if I am a retailer, I can't charge more to customers who pay using Amex (who have high interchange fees) compared to those who pay using visa/MasterCard (lower fees).

Meaning, if NPP keeps interchange fees low, the benefit would be passed on to retailers directly. Consumers would see 0 benefit. If consumers see 0 benefit, no one's going to pay using NPP. This is the case with interac in Canada. Interac payments are better for retailers. But I see 0 cashbacks through my interac card. Why should I not use my visa credit card instead that gives me better cashbacks?

Therefore, here's what NPP does: it charges marginally less interchange fees compared to visa Mastercard, WHILE passing most of the fees charged to the retailer directly to the consumer as direct cashback.

Consumer adoption happens because of better cashbacks, retailer adoption happens because there are people willing to pay using an NPP card (and also the sliiiightly less interchange fees).

Now, to the organisational structure of NPP. State owned corps are prone to corruption. Accountability structures are top down. If I, the taxpayer owner of NPP am seeing corruption in NPP, I have to threaten my MP with my vote, who has to threaten the PM with their vote, who then has to threaten the finance minister with their job, who then has to threaten the head of the central bank with their job, who then has to threaten the ceo of NPP with their job.

Instead, while the state maintains equity over NPP, the operations of NPP are controlled by a state started consumer cooperative, where member owners are those who own an NPP card. This way, accountability structures are much more direct. The inefficiencies of state owned corps are severely reduced while maintaining the benefits.

[โ€“] Niquarl@lemmy.ml 1 points 18 hours ago

I don't understand how this is an issue. In France there exists CB and as far as I understand other EU countries have got their own equivalent national Visa/MasterCard competitor... Why do some countries not have their own ? Why can't they just enter in an agreement to use this ? Why do people always comment about this app or this other app.

[โ€“] Gammelfisch@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

Japan started JCB in 1961.

[โ€“] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Funny how when Visa and MasterCard cut off cross-border payments in Russia โ€” by their own initiative, without any laws forcing them to do that โ€” Westerners all cheered. Then three years later it finally hit them as to what that means.

Meanwhile Russia was building their own payment system since 2014, and it was already working nationwide before '22, so people just got a new card if they wanted, and the system currently dominates the country's market.

at least we have Wirecard

[โ€“] alfredon996@feddit.it 28 points 2 days ago (2 children)

We need digital euro. There are advances, but it's still going too slow.

[โ€“] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yup. This is the solution to US control of cashless transactions. The sooner the digital euro can be agreed upon, standardized and rolled out at the EU level, the better.

As a Romanian in a country still outside the Eurozone, I hope there's provisions to allow us to use it for RON transactions while our economy is still too much of a mess to join.

[โ€“] just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Doesn't this open up privacy issues?

[โ€“] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes. They compare it to cash, but the FAQ specifies

[Payment Service Providers] would be able to identify users for the purpose of compliance with anti-money laundering rules.

Better systems include blinded signatures and ring signatures.

[โ€“] jnod4@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 day ago

The amount of times I had my rent/bills bounce because my bank got frozen from anti money laundering AI bullshit that flags every single thing. God forbid you can afford to pay a friend's car insurance

[โ€“] Mihies@programming.dev 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

We need an open platform for payments, not just another centralized solution.

[โ€“] jacksilver@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think the biggest issue with this is that payment systems require a certain level of trust, that's hard to achieve in a decentralized system.

[โ€“] Mihies@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good point. Trusted by who? Let's say a business has an open payment system and you are buying something from them using whatever money provider you use. What do they care if transaction is successful and money has been wired to them? Also we have certificates and what not, business could act like browsers - trust valid certificates and not trust invalid ones or do as they please. Of course the question here is who provides certificate validity - there could be more providers. I didn't really think deeply into it, but we should be free to not be under one or the other master that can and will bully and extort us.

[โ€“] victorz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

we should be free to not be under one or the other master that can and will bully and extort us.

I think that ship may have sailed for humankind since centuries back. ๐Ÿ˜

[โ€“] Mihies@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sadly, you might be right. But one can still dream, right.

[โ€“] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I'm with you. I feel like that's what I'm doing every day while wide awake.

Not the kind of world I wanted to raise my kids in, I tell you that much.

[โ€“] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

How decentralized does it need to be? Is a central issuer (like GNU Taler) acceptable?

[โ€“] Mihies@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

As long as transaction is completed, why not? But it shouldn't be limited to one issuer.

[โ€“] BarHocker@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 2 days ago (5 children)

It exists, it is called Wero. Check with your European bank if they support it. Many do.

[โ€“] falseWhite@lemmy.world 28 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Haven't seen any shops supporting no Wero though, whereas you can visa and MasterCard in virtually any shop in the world.

A LOT of catching up to do, before it could actually be used realistically by people. Maybe banks can use it internally.

[โ€“] Renohren@lemmy.today 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

It hasn't been rolled out to brick and mortar yet. This is planned in Q4 2026. ( And yes: they have planned much lower fees than visa/MasterCard and simpler P.O.S setups where existing hardware could be used).

The EPI (European Payment Initiative , a grouping of 16 European banks and financial institutions) is deliberately doing a slow launch though the tech behind it is all set up.

They don't want to F-up with people's money.

[โ€“] BarHocker@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fair point, however, it is happening. They already outline the payment process and it seems simple enough to implement, at least for payment by smartphone.

Scan QR code with your banking app, confirm payment, done.

[โ€“] DreasNil@feddit.nu 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The scanning of the QR code is unfortunately a bigger issue than one can imagine. Takes slightly longer and is slightly more complicated than just blipping your credit card. Enough so to dissuade most people to use it.

[โ€“] Renohren@lemmy.today 2 points 23 hours ago

With the credit cards, you still need to get android wallet, Apple pay, authenticate, do the NFC dance...

Many European countries already have local parallel systems already for pin and chip cards, Visa/MasterCard is already a secondary system if the card is used within the country's border despite the huge logos.

[โ€“] dentacle@bookwyr.me 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[โ€“] HotChickenFeet@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I see Taler brought up, and it always intrigues me.

What is the current state of it? With the app it looks like I can add a bank potentially but there are no payment service providers populated.

Does it currently function in a way I could transfer money between myself and a friend?

[โ€“] dentacle@bookwyr.me 4 points 2 days ago

Here is another readme about the state: https://www.taler.net/en/ngi-taler.html

Some banks, mainly cooperative banks, already work with it. But it's again one of those systems that doesn't make them money, so I suspect it will die a slow death.

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[โ€“] ripcord@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

GNU Taler is developed as part of the GNU project for the GNU Operating System

the GNU Operating System

Lol

[โ€“] Goun@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

I missed the joke here

[โ€“] Goun@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Does anyone.. actually.. use it? I installed it some time ago and got stuck at not knowing what to do next

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[โ€“] waigl@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Wero is not widely supported yet, it's not even finished yet, it doesn't have feature parity with existing solutions. Compared to its predecessor, Giropay, it's also rather intransparent, in a "just trust our app, bro" kind of way, with little in the way of open standards.

It needs support from every single bank to work (in stark contrast to PayPal, btw), and that support requires quite a lot of development and maintenance effort on the part of the bank. Parent poster (BarHocker) said many European banks already support it, but the practical reality is most of them don't, and largely didn't have any plans to, either. The number of supporting banks is artificially inflated by the fact that the German Volksbanken/Raiffeisenbanken and the Sparkassen, respectively are technically hundreds of small regional banks.

This requirement to have direct support from the individual banks is, the way I see it, the main reason why Giropay failed. If Wero has the exact same problem, I don't see why it would succeed where Giropay did not.

I do still hope for it, though.

[โ€“] DreasNil@feddit.nu 5 points 2 days ago

I'm afraid you're wrong. We've had something very similar to Wero in Sweden since 2012 - it's called Swish. It helps, but it unfortunately doesn't get rid of the need for visa and mastercard.

[โ€“] Microw@piefed.zip 3 points 2 days ago

Wero has a specific functionality. He is not talking necessarily about consumer-facing systems here. For european banks there are other systems and infrastructure that need to be thought about.

[โ€“] kofzmann@toots.nu 25 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

@DreasNil all IT infrastructure
is too dependent on the US. Good that people are waking up to some degree

[โ€“] DreasNil@feddit.nu 7 points 2 days ago

I completely agree!

[โ€“] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just copy Pix and be done with it.

[โ€“] jdr@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What about Bizum? Revolut?

Don't know those.

[โ€“] zjti8eit@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Eliminate the need for central banking altogether, buy and sell in Bitcoin

[โ€“] TerranFenrir@lemmy.ca 4 points 20 hours ago

BTC is highly inefficient.

Central banks are good, as they can manipulate interest rates to avoid recessions. This is not possible with BTC.

The USD was tied to gold during the great depression. This fact was one of the biggest reasons why the depression lasted so long. Had the USD not been tied to gold, the depression would have been much shorter.

If BTC becomes the primary method of transaction, be prepared for recessions to be as devastating.

[โ€“] tostiman@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Source? You only linked an image

[โ€“] Kjell@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

It is reported in several Swedish news outlet, but the original source was an interview on a public service radio channel that was aired this morning: https://www.sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/riksbankschef-erik-thedeen-att-skapa-europeiska-betalsystem-ar-viktigt-pa-grund-av-den-geopolitiska-situationen

[โ€“] DreasNil@feddit.nu 2 points 1 day ago

Oopsie, sorry about that. The link apparently disappeared when I added the picture. I changed it back again.

[โ€“] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 10 points 2 days ago

should go all the way and de-dollarize. that would really stick it to the yanks

[โ€“] Babalugats@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I thought that there was already an EU payment system in the pipeline, due to roll out completely in 2026? Or did I make that up.... ๐Ÿค”

EDIT - Wero - https://sbs-software.com/insights/wero-europe-payment-race/

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[โ€“] LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don't understand how Visa has the influence and authority they do, you're just moving numbers in a fucking computer how fucking hard could it be

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[โ€“] Kuori@hexbear.net 3 points 2 days ago

"vassal too dependent on its lord"

well, yes

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