Monzo was also founded in the EU, in the UK specifically when they were still in the EU.

> The EU has recently reduced fees for one of the biggest instant payment systems of the world (SCT inst reaches the Eurozone's 350M residents).

But that was done by regulation, wasn't it? Would have been nicer to see that come as a result of competition.

> Of course, all of this doesn't mean that the average EU bank doesn't suck. But I heard worse of the US.

I don't know about the average. But I can tell you that quality varies a lot. I was generally OK with German banks (having grown up there), but UK banks before Monzo (and Revolut, Wise etc) used to be the scum of the earth. Just like their supermarkets used to feel openly hostile to me as a customer before Aldi and Lidl showed up and shook up the market.

Yes, Tesco and friends regularly get told off by the regulator before, but nothing changed until competition forced their hands, and gave customers something they preferred.

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toyg a day ago | parent | next [-]

> UK banks [...] used to be the scum of the earth

They still had chip&pin before US banks, and dropped unsafe cheques before US banks.

The US banking system, afaik, did one thing better: credit cards. But since the '00s, European ones have been just as good and often better.

	▲	eru a day ago \| parent [-]
		> They still had chip&pin before US banks, and dropped unsafe cheques before US banks. Oh, I never banked in the US, so I can't comment on them from a consumer point of view. > The US banking system, afaik, did one thing better: credit cards. But since the '00s, European ones have been just as good and often better. I used credit cards perhaps a handful of times in my life. It's almost exclusively been debit cards for me.

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shivasaxena a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> But that was done by regulation, wasn't it? Would have been nicer to see that come as a result of competition.

Bill Gurly has been crying for years now about how US banks have been bocking/not-participating in equivalent services in US(Fed Now) and for good business reasons for them.

A well functioning market does need regulations. Not everything can be magically fixed by "competition"

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kivatinos_bill-gurley-on-paym...

	▲	eru a day ago \| parent [-]
		> A well functioning market does need regulations. Not everything can be magically fixed by "competition" Ideally, you can set up your regulations so that competition has more bite. Much of the time, you can remove special purpose regulations for a specific sector, and can get by with just the generics: enforcing contracts, punishing fraud, etc.