this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2026
77 points (96.4% liked)

Europe

10326 readers
1274 users here now

News and information from Europe πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules (2024-08-30)

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
  • ECB selecting banks that want to take part in pilot phase

  • ECB setup costs to reach around 1.3 bln euros, Cipollone says

  • Banks to pocket fees, won't have to pay system costs to ECB

  • Merchants will also have an incentive in terms of cap on fees

top 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] muelltonne@feddit.org 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As of January 2026, there were a total of 4,633 credit institutions operating in the European Union

So that 6 billion is 1,3 million per bank spread over 4 years. So 323.764€ per year. That actually sounds unrealisticly cheap.

[–] Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 3 points 22 hours ago

That sounds cheaper than fees to other systems.

[–] CyberEgg@discuss.tchncs.de 50 points 1 day ago (1 children)

that is about 3% of what they spend every year on IT‑system maintenance," Cipollone said.

Just to put the number into context.

[–] deHaga@feddit.uk 10 points 1 day ago

It's not going to cost them net anything though. 4b to setup and then fees for as long as the currency lasts...so they'll recoup all their costs and then it'll be free money

[–] hector@lemmy.today 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sounds like a good idea to get away from mastercard and visa and the like. They are beholden to the US and will continue to abuse their market position for their callous goals. Not that the EU is a trustworthy player but they will at least have their own representatives trying to get over on them and not American ones.

[–] dnub@piefed.social 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Banks = shit, not ALL but most.. right now we should be getting away from US, but wouldn't be surprised when AI bubble pops we suffer repercussions because our banks also had money there

[–] hector@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I couldn't agree more. I don't know much about European banks, but the American ones are some of the worst companies in the world, since 1999 when they cancelled the depression era rules that prevented them from operating nationally and mixing investment and commerical banks, and importantly where they cancelled a provision that the writer of a security, like a mortgage, had to hold a percentage of that security until maturity, to give them incentive to write good loans and not fob them off on suckers.

It worked, until they cancelled it. Big banks gouge us with fees, they try to overdraft us. I always canceled overdraft protection and they reinsitute it every year without explicitly telling you. If you depositing money, then made withdrawals, they would not clear your check, for the purposes of charging you multiple overdraft fees after 2008. Like normally a paycheck would be available at least party right away, but they were maximizing fee revenue, and made billions extra in fees after 2008 when our tax dollars bailed them out for their perversions of the market.

I use credit unions, I can't overstate how much I hate big banks, for so many reasons.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

American banks are the worst in the world. Don't get me wrong, it's not some utopia here in the EU. Banks here will pull as much bullshit as they're legally allowed to, but the difference is there's more consumer protection.

And in General more regulations to stop banks from going completely crazy.

[–] Kushan@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I think this is quite a naive perspective on banks. You don't want them making investments, yet you also don't want to pay fees? How is that supposed to work? Do you want to pay for your banking services directly?

[–] dnub@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't want them making high investments on foreign assets, don't expose too much, invest within europe, why not invest in infrastructure building or maintenance? It's infrastructure so it's needed.. ROI is low? Probably because there's less risk

[–] Kushan@lemmy.world 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Surely they should be doing a bit of all of that, that's how you reduce risk with investments.

[–] dnub@piefed.social 1 points 13 hours ago

Yes, lend money to people to buy houses or start businesses.. everything has risk but don't expose too much to the inflated US market

Thinking that banks need to collect a fee for small money transfers it's not seeing how big banks really are

[–] doleo@lemmy.one 0 points 1 day ago

You don’t want them making investments, yet you also don’t want to pay fees?

Correct.

[–] Pip@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago

That's incredibly cheap. Crazy how long it took to get to this point.