With the state of global politics right now and with the unpredicatble descisions of Trump having much wider concequence, it got me wondering how things might escalate.
Noting how easy it was for MasterCard to stop processing Russian issued cards[1] as part of the Ukraine war sanctions:
.. cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by the Mastercard network regardless of where they’re used - inside or outside of Russia
How much of a risk is it for similar actions against cards issued here and in Europe if the Greenland issue escalates?
More importantly, has Monzo assessed this risk and what are the mitigations to keep Monzo viable in this scenario?
I really don’t think they’d do something as silly as to cut off en entire continent for a inept president who’s had most of the things he’s tried to do overturned by courts. Pretty sure they’d catch it and block it before it even became a thing. Even if they did Monzo aren’t a payment processor and most of the payment processor are American so they’d all be blocked. Thus why the Europeans are taking about launching their own stuff to step away from reliance on America
Wero is one of Europe’s solutions it seems to not rely on America but it’s slow to roll out and only available in very small amounts of Europe
This is precisely why China has UnionPay and Japan still keeps its JCB. It’s a shame it took Trump for Europe (especially the UK) to realise how dangerous it is to rely so heavily on the US tech giants.
Europe used to have Europay which came up with the EMV standard but sadly got merged into MasterCard. The future, however, is not reviving yet another costly card payment scheme, but adopt a fast and secure A2A payment system that eliminates card processing fees.
Wero seems to be Europes new solution, shame they sold out the last one to MasterCard as you said. No cards it seems it’s gonna rely on QR codes and bank transfers. Guess that makes sense to get rid of the interchange fees Mastercard/Visa/American Express always got away with charging businesses to accept cards
There’s a lot happening right now that I’d have originally chalked up to “I don’t think they’d do something as silly..”. I certainly hope MasterCard wouldn’t cut off our continent if it came to Trump demanding it.
Another thing I’m wondering, does a virtual card issued to a phone for Android / Apple pay still behind the scenes act as a “MasterCard issued” card, or would this be a viable alternative for making payments with Monzo if the worst happened?
Yes they’re still Mastercard/Visa issued cards even if added to Google Pay, the issue is we need local payment processors the people who actually manage processing the transactions like Visa/Mastercard/American Express do
That future is inevitable anyway, although I’m sure the Visa-MC duopoly will try to do everything to slow down Europe’s efforts to move away from them (Visa bought Tink to get ahead of that). The EU is pushing for stablecoin and digital Euro in addition to the already-existing SEPA. When I checked Wise recently, they now have in-app QR code payment which I look forward to if I can use it in Europe friction-free.
China’s UnionPay sucks so WeChat Pay took over and now rules their market. QR code payments are so popular that neighbouring countries like Vietnam has made cross-border A2A agreements to boost tourism.
We do have those contingency plans, Trump’s aggression on Greenland turns out to be a blessing in disguise to finally keep those initiatives alive.
Yep, Europe seem to be following with A2A QR payment via Wero. The question is what will the UK do, will it join European counterparts like Wero or stay reliant on its unreliable ally of the United States and Visa/Mastercard/American Express or will it come up with its own solution
Wero is definitely an interesting example of yes we have the simplicity of cards but it comes at a cost of American reliance and fees (for now)
As usual, the UK would probably leave it until it’s too late and make all the last minute changes. Then the public will moan about how technology is not to be trusted and we should’ve sticked to the status quo.
The Credit Card Act 1975 has such a strong protection, but it was relevant to the time the first credit card was ever introduced. We need an equal protection to faster A2A payments (we kind of already have for push payment protection) to encourage the public to adapt the new A2A habit.
A2A works and I’d definitely be all for it for paying with it, in place of having a card especially if it helps bring down prices because merchants no longer having to including interchange fee costs in their pricing. Although the interchange cap already helps somewhat keep those fees down (not that I agree with them)
Quite a few European countries still have their own debit card networks. Norway has BankAxept, Denmark has Dankort, Germany has girocard.
A European alternative card network should be the way, but that failed a few years ago already (before Trump’s second term though). Wero is a step forward and I could see myself using it to send friends small payments - I used something very similar in other countries too.
It may make it to the UK at some point, and Ireland in 10 years
The only problem with this is the grip the Americans have on the market, it would take a hell of a lot of work to encourage countries to let go of reliance on a system that’s been operating for a long time for a new system that could end up being ultimately clunky for years as it goes through teething
Never claimed it wasn’t, credit where credits due they have blocked a number of things. My point was I’m doubtful that it would come to light and would face many hurdles if it were even attempted as it indirectly hurts Americans even if it doesn’t directly effect them as it serves to damage EU/UK ties further. Definitely solutions needed to be though of long ago not today onwards but unfortunately countries are slow to see stuff like this until it’s blinding them in the face. I don’t think we’ll see as heavy a reliance on America ever again after seeing this administration and what can happen if America goes rogue
Who/whatever caused the recent AWS and Cloudflare outage, that just needs to happen more often for Big Brothers to shift their system away from Murica.
I’m gonna start a chequebooks collection next. We might see click-clack machines coming back.
people with 100 different cheque books because they like the designs