this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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Hey guys!

Visa and Mastercard are the 8th and 15th biggest companies in the world, worth more than 1.1T USD (!!!).

For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.

That's one the biggest waste of money from EU you can imagine.

I'm trying to find viable alternatives but except paying cash it seem there is no real alternative. Even in where I live there is an alternate payment service but they take the money from my mastercard, duh...

And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?

Edit: Bitcoin would be a solution if widely adopted, but more realistic would be something accepted by every cashier machine, and if possible using the NFC of your phone, a kind of "Apple/Google" Pay, that goes directly from your bank to the bank's shop. Where I live all debit cards are either visa or mastercard...

Edit2: There is an EU initiative that seem to be starting with WERO, never heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative

Edit3: It seem that Paysafecard and Skrill are EU solutions and sometimes proposed in the payment method, but not with STRIPE payment solutions

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[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?

Use cash

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A sensible stopgap solution, but doesn't really work for big purchases or online shopping.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

For big purchases it doesn't, indeed. But for online shopping, would it work if you select payment on delivery at checkout, maybe?

[โ€“] [email protected] 49 points 4 days ago (1 children)

China has UnionPay, Japan has JCB, Russia has MIR. Europe should have its own credit card network

[โ€“] [email protected] 33 points 4 days ago (2 children)

"EUROCARD"

Sounds nice as well

Make it blue with stars on it and the globe displaying a space picture of earth with europe

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

CC: @EUCommission

Done. Hopefully they'll see my tag

[โ€“] [email protected] 54 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Wero will become the replacement over time.

But for now, you're stuck with Visa and Mastercard if your country doesn't have a local alternative.

Just get the cheapest option.

[โ€“] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Wero flew by my radar, thanks for the hint. Three of my banks even support it already, awesome!

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago

Wero can win if the banks offer it with no additional cost to stores and, and this ia crucial, it offers credit and the blocking of funds for stuff like car rentals.

It needs to be as easy a visa/MasterCard and cheaper / easier to run with the same features. I have hope, but that is a tough order.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 26 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Have you looked into American Express?

oh shit, nevermind.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Clearly Discover is the solution. Oh wait, that's not an option either.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Discover network is up for sale. Capital One is trying to grab it. But if that doesnโ€™t go through, a Canadian or European bank could try bidding for it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (7 children)

A local debit card is your best bet

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Maestro is part of MasterCard.

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Maestro isn't a local system it's a limited debit card like electron for visa. Other comments are about national Credit cards. WERO is the only European network pushed by the ECB (and begrudgingly taken up by most major European banks). It piggy backs on the Free-of-charge instant wiring SEPA system.

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago

TIL Maestro still exists

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[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Bitcoin uses way to much energy to use as currency like that. gridcoin or any other one that uses proof of stake would be better if accepted but its a bit nicer if the energy put into it results in a useful product which gridcoin does.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How does production of physical cash and movement of money between accounts compare to crypto?

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

creation of physical cash's cost are not inflated and get changed based on cost and necessity. Using cheaper materials to reduce cost but adding advanced elements which increase cost. Again though it does not have an artificial inflation mechanic causing it to use more energy over time and is just based on method and materials. A big thing in this is how long it functions. coins cost more than paper mostly but one thing people don't take into account is how long they last versus paper. So you typically see things about a penny costing more than a penny but whats not taken into account is that it is least lasting coin at 25 years while most paper under 50s last less than 10 years but longer lasting denominations are usually used less. It comes down to how much value physical money gets in its lifetime vs its cost to make. So you add up every transaction and average out the value for a particular currency type. Movement is done in the real world so its a bit apples to oranges. It does not require anything necessarily. If all computers and electricity. So its going to vary greatly if I give my brother a fiver for grabbing his oj than if I go deposit it at a bank to if I buy from a retalier to if I foolishly mailed it directly. I don't think physical money can be compared to much of any electronic equivalents honestly. That is in the realm of folks that believe in cashless system to ones who want some ability to have the physical ability.

[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Isnโ€™t PagoBANCOMAT a good solution too?

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago

In Canada we have Interac. Works great.

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This might not help you OP, but alternative to VISA and Mastercard is UPI. India and some south east asian countries use that for transactions rapidly. Also India also built Rupay (not the currency) to break visa and mastercards duopoly.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If you're in the Nordics I suggest Vipps/Mobilepay/Swish as payment methods.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You still have to add a credit/debit card to it though.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not sure about Vipps/Mobilepay, but for Swish I don't think you do. It's connected directly to the bank account IIRC.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

That's nice. For MobilePay, you connect your bank account to receive money, but to send you need a card. You can also send using a bank account, but a card needs to be connected regardless (stupid design).

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

In Poland we have a local system called Blik, based on codes similar to the 2FA ones. There's also promising projects like GNU Taler, but I don't thinks that's even starting to be used already.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Easy: iDEAL (which is a shitty system, but still..)

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