The launch of the digital euro could give every European a free, universal payment account. But this grand vision is at risk of being curtailed by a well-coordinated lobbying campaign of the banking industry. Banks want to make sure you will keep needing them – and they have EU officials’ ears.

The launch of the digital euro could give every European a free, universal payment account. But this grand vision is at risk of being curtailed by a well-coordinated lobbying campaign of the banking industry. Banks want to make sure you will keep needing them – and they have EU officials’ ears.

  • SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.deEnglish
    56·
    8 months ago

    VISA will be the main driver to protect the old system where they control the network and the mechants-fees. That is what makes them money. Billions years over years.

    The Podcast “Aquired” has a 3h long podcast that tells the crazy story of VISA, its founder and how they came to control the market. If anyone will do anything in its power to not liberalize the payment landscape, then it will be this very Company. It will go thermonuclear on their revenue stream.

  • shrugal@lemm.eeEnglish
    51·
    8 months ago

    “If [the] digital Euro can also be used for tax payments etc and general acceptance is mandated, a significant amount of their clients could do their full finances with the digital Euro and won’t need an account with a commercial bank anymore,” German cooperative bank lobbyists warned the Commission in one of the documents.

    Imagine “warning” them that their idea could have the desired effect!

  • maynarkh@feddit.nlEnglish
    15·
    8 months ago

    I always thought that commercial banking and the transfer industry will basically lose their whole raison d’être if we ever get CBDCs working, and I didn’t understand if they had any plans for it. I guess not.

  • misk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    152·
    8 months ago

    This is confusing, doesn’t EU mandate a free / basic tier of banking account already? And isn’t pretty much every currency digital too?

    Public payment processor is a pipe dream though. Someone has to do AML, insurance. Free wire transfers are subsidized by other revenue streams.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nlEnglish
      6·
      8 months ago

      It technically could be subsidized by taxes. Not saying if that’s good or bad.

      • misk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        3·
        8 months ago

        There’s a catch here. Large amount of AML regulations imposed on banks is an indirect form of taxation, even if it wasn’t the original goal. Banks have to do bulk of investigative work that makes sense to do there. To do that they have to employ crapload of people (in Poland, Hungary, Estonia etc). I’m not sure individual governments or EU want to get into that because they could turn out to be less competitive than private sector which has no qualms with outsourcing / offshoring as much as possible.

        • misk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          8 months ago

          I don’t want to but keep getting into devils advocate shoes all the time so apologies in advance.

          In my opinion blacklisting of sources is OK but the reason for doing so should be well sourced (Wikipedia paints that institute in rather positive light). I modded polish national sub for a while and we kept this documented as a list with reasons for blacklisting (usually connection to Russian misinfo reported by reputable NGOs) in a public wiki which might be overkill made our lives easier in a long run.

          • poVoq@slrpnk.netMEnglish
            3·
            8 months ago

            The post itself was hardly better, repeating right-wing conspiracy theories about fiat currencies. I would have probably also removed it even if the supporting source was not a literal propaganda institute for the Koch brothers.

        • Mkengine@feddit.deEnglish
          1·
          8 months ago

          Just a Lemmy general question: When you remove the post, does this affect only users from you own instance? I am asking, because I still can see the post and I am coming from feddit.de and use sync.

    • Rikj000@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      311·
      8 months ago

      Not based on,
      we should stand up for just using Monero itself as our currency.

      Based on could mean a centralized wallet and/or surveillance implemented on top of it.

      • Lemmchen@feddit.deEnglish
        22·
        8 months ago

        I don’t want a volatile currency as my main currency. Also, I think PoW isn’t the way to go anymore. A digital PoS “Monero” stablecoin is what I was thinking about.

    • taladar@feddit.deEnglish
      274·
      8 months ago

      The only thing anyone is scared about with Bitcoin is that it will burn so much energy that it will accelerate climate change. As a currency it failed years ago in case you haven’t noticed.

    • Wodge@lemmy.worldEnglish
      123·
      8 months ago

      No one is scared of bitcoin. You can’t use it down your local shop to buy your groceries with. This EU digital currency can do that.