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yardie 3 hours ago

My wife found out her new card was Discover debit card right before her trip to France. Her bank sent her a new card unrequested. In an abundance of caution she activated the new card which automatically cancelled her debit Mastercard. Then when she landed in CDG found the new card didn't work anywhere.

Curiositiy 3 hours ago | parent [-]

This is what these peeps advocating for an "EU-based payment system" don't get, as they typically don't travel worldwide. VISA + Master just work. Have a debit plus credit for one each. (And no, Google / Apple pay won't do it, everyone who calls themselves a "hacker" should know that you too often can't even pay for transport using a rooted phone).

danelski 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Aside from what the other commenter said about the hybrid systems, you proudly state that you have 4 cards at minimum, but having a system that would work continent-wide for ~98% of all money you spend would not bootstrap if someone needed to be bothered with having a separate travel card, which would rest in the drawer or as second Apple/Google/Garmin Pay choice most of the time? Most adults I know have 2+ cards already, it's just that they were issued by Master Card or Visa. American Express and Discover still exist, despite definitely not having worldwide coverage.

markvdb an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

VISA + Master just work _for now_. Debanking Nicolas Guillou[0] was a financial Greenland.

Short-term negative-sum transactionalists are governing the US. Even if November stabilises things somewhat, the cat is probably out of the bag.

Trust comes on foot, but leaves on horseback. _That_ is why a well-integrated EU-based payment system is needed.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Guillou

aveao 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We do actually. The German Girocards were, until Maestro ceased to exist, often co-issued as Maestro + Girocard, and global acceptance was pretty good under the Mastercard network.

There are examples of other co-branded national payment systems out there (troy + Discover comes to mind).

If a European payment system (with cards, at a store) is to exist, then visa/mc will still want a piece of the pie by at least playing along to remain as a co-brand and taking their cuts from international payments.