It's weird that this hasn't already long since happened. Most every Asian country I've been to has had its own local payment systems.
There seems to be this idea that Visa & Mastercard are somehow too big to be usurped, but it's all illusion.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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I'm a firm believer in payment neutrality. Visa and Mastercard as payment processors should neither be held liable for what payments go through their pipes, but at the same time they cannot stop any payment going through their pipes.
For all things like money laundering etc. Those must be handled by banks and the government, not the payment processor. Visa and Mastercard are just pipes for money to travel through, not banks.
This is a worry for me. I opened an ebay.co.uk account in 2004. You had to pay for purchases via Paypal. I had all sorts of problems using Paypal and customer care was lousy. I started looking into Paypal and decided it was unethical. I opted out. Ever since, I have been looking for more ethical financial services. When I cannot find them, I just do without stuff.
Right now, I have allegedly ethical bank accounts with Co-Op Bank (UK), Smile Bank (UK) and Triodos (EU). I have a savings account with a community-run credit union (UK) and a prepaid debit card account through my trade union for online purchases (UK). This is good enough for UK-based activity. But I often need to send money abroad e.g. to charities in other countries or to support podcasts or creatives based abroad. I am asked to fund via USA resources like Patreon and I refuse. I want an ethical alternative.
I want to see each nation (or groups like the EU) create its own local resources and make them compatible with other nations via some exchange service that guarantees secure, quick, ethical transactions. I am glad EU is starting to do this, it is decades overdue. I guess UK will drag itself forward eventually but only after we get a government able to live in the here and now instead of the C20th like Starmer does - I suspect he has not had a new idea since 1995. He's younger than me but his mental processes make him seem like my grandfather. Oh, for some young people in government!
P.S. Hello, Media Storm, UK prize-winning investigative journalism podcast. You are great but I cannot fund you as you use oligarch-owned Patreon and communicate only via oligarch-run Instagram or gmail - if you read this, set up some UK-based, ethical comms or funding account and I will set up a monthly subscription. I will email you about this using mediastormpodcast(at)gmail.com but I resent it.
The problem is the dollar. While international trade is in US dollars, US can dominate global economy. But Trump is trashing dollar and promoting crypto. How long will the dollar remain default currency? I think when dollar loses its value, USA economy will crash harder than any crash in history. Wheelbarrows of dollars will not buy matches. Will another traditional currency replace the dollar or is dollar's fall a sign that the old system no longer works for any currency. How does economics function after money fails? Are we all going to have to use crypto? How does that work? I hope some expert in economics has worked out a plan. I doubt they have though, this is all unchartered territory.
When the same happened to the Zimbabwe currency - I have a friend who keeps a trillion dollar note in his wallet - they switched to US dollars. When the US economy crashes out something similar will happen.
My dad used drilled out and used his Zimbabwe coins as washers when he built a pergola there
I hope. Maybe Euro, maybe PRC's renminbi. We'll see.
I just wondered, give how US dollars is world's 'reserve currency' (since 1944 Bretton Woods pact), how its crash might affect the whole of global trade (it must hurt more than failure of a national currency like Zimbabwe's since it is a reserve currency and has a special role in the world). Will we get another reserve currency or has the world economy changed so much that we will get a new way of doing business with no reserve currency or multiple competing reserve currencies? I think we are in uncharted territory so its hard to predict...
I doubt it'll be any of the BRICS currencies, although my only knowledge of that stuff is what I get from Peter Zeihan vids on YT. His rather amusing take on that is that each nation only wants to be in it if they can run it, which obviously isn't going to work. The Euro is already proven to work across multiple nations and 32% more people than the USA, it's only idiots like us Brits that won't use it "bEcAuSe SoVeReIgNtY".
Watching the dollar crash will certainly be interesting...
It would probably work out ok for the UK if they used the Euro, but it's still useful to be able to dictate fiscal policy.
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I really hope that the EU introduces a global payment and banking system that is agnostic. I don't want to be under MasterVisa's thumb, and would prefer to keep the bulk of my money as Euros instead of American Dollars. Problem is, as an American, I can't readily use Euros in my daily life.
Here's hoping the EU can strike up a solution with Blue States, so that I don't need to ask Musk for permission to buy anything.
You could solve half of it by getting a Wise account which comes with both a real USD routing number as well as an European IBAN. You can keep your money as euros and do card payments in USD or any other currency with better rates than a normal European bank account would give you
HOWEVER
The Wise debit card is still a VISA one.
Don't let the Christians get up in there and dictate what you can and can't buy with it
Christian conservative takeover of America is real
Christian in name only.
it's sucked since roman times, but now even the good parts are being bled out until controlling and scamming people is all that's left.
I know what you mean, but it depends on definition (I commend you for having a more ethical one than them). They self-identify as Christians though.
Yeah, that is what happened to DLSite. It sells Japanese media such as hentai, so Visa & Mastercard put a universal ban on their products, no matter the category. It is a 1st Amendment violation IMO, since they are gatekeeping an entire culture.
I can easily see MasterVisa banning European or Canadian merchants for the sake of a Trump Regime.
we shouldn't allow private tyrants to control us like that
We got UPI in india and it's amazing. You use it and feel like the rest of the world is living in the past.
How does India and Brazil (PIX) have that but US/EU doesn't?
To me, it is a bastard child who turned out noble. In India, the government a few years back had announced overnight invalidity of the highest two denominations of cash notes, in an ill-informed attempt to "eliminate black money". The alternative note to replace the two, was of even a higher denomination and often in scarcity due to the sudden and unplanned decision. (ATMs were malfunctioning due to the different size of the note). It was a chaotic time and many daily-wage earners, and other vulnerable groups, the economy as a whole suffered. These events indirectly led to a very good technological infrastructure, but I will always believe that the price included some of our blood. (It didn't have to be)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation
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Cashless payment is fucked. Using a phone to pay with? Sorry, only google wallet or apple pay, and in most cases only visa or mastercard. It's only recently that that Danish "Dankortet" is getting support in those apps. Bit fucking late, but US led companies don't give a fuck.
Samsung have their own wallet app, too. There are also a number of alternatives to Visa and Mastercard, but unfortunately, they are not as widespread or are limited to a particular countries banking system. In Canada, we have Interac, for example.
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If anything, I'm really glad how Europe has stepped up and started cooperating more as a consequence of US actions these past few months.
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