It would be awesome if Canada could do this.

"Every time a European taps a card, pays online or splits a bill with friends, the transaction flows through infrastructure owned and operated by American companies."

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[–] 15 points 9 months ago (6 children)

It would definitely be great to get away from Visa and MasterCard but Canada is significantly smaller than the EU population wise. Even the article says it will be trouble to reach a breaking point to make vendors acknowledge another payment method outside of common credit cards.

Love the idea and I hope the EU can make some waves to move everyone away from US tech.

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  • [–] [S] 12 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    I wonder if it is possible/ feasible to "piggyback" with Europe? I know this is just fanciful thinking, as I suspect it would be very difficult and expensive to decouple from Visa/ MC & Amex, and there are likely a lot of ridiculously wealthy people that in one way or another profit from the current system, so . . . Still a good thought exercise.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Why not?

    Canada should join with most European initiatives.

    Why is it easier to integrate to the US than to Europe?

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    Why is it easier to integrate to the US than to Europe?

    Because a lot of Canadian business is actually US business in a trenchcoat. With free trade agreements and lax foreign ownership laws there's a fair amount of ostensibly Canadian companies that are whole or in part American owned. The whole world is kinda like that actually. Globally we've allowed them to conglomerate themselves into every market, and VC themselves into control of way more than they should be.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Funny you mention piggybacking onto Europe as that was my first thought too! The way the article brought up simpler transfers and a digital euro made me think of Canada and e-transfers. There must be some way to make it work.

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