“It didn’t go unnoticed in Frankfurt that Visa and Mastercard suspended operations in Russia in March 2022 after the invasion of Ukraine……Thirteen of the 20 countries in the euro have no domestic card scheme. You use an international operator, or you pay in cash.”
It hasn’t gone unnoticed that the US is threatening to invade an EU country’s (Denmark) territory, either. Would a future President Trump or President Vance threaten to shut down European financial infrastructure if it opposes an annexation of Greenland? Who knows, but better to take away that opportunity for leverage.
The plan is that you can link it to your bank account or open a special account at post offices throughout the EU. There will be phone apps for payments and digital Euro debit cards. Visa/Mastercard & Apple/Google Pay typically charge 3% fees; the digital Euro will have none. That will ensure it is speedily adopted by retailers and quickly supplants the US providers. Also worth noting its technology will be 100% European only, leaving zero vulnerability/leverage to non-Europeans.
Holy shit, this is exactly what I was talking to my parents about over Christmas. A wallet in your phone, money lost when stolen, no tracking. This is potentially big.
The article explicitly states that that might be one option, to have a separate, offline fund that is tied directly to the phone, but it isn’t the default and, again, optional. It would help during outages and also have a privacy element for those concerned.
Yes, that’s what I’m hoping for. Fingers crossed!
But I don’t want my money to be lost when stolen. If I wanted that, I’d carry cash.
Then use the card for the anonymous account?
That’s not what this is. It’s not a digital wallet: it’s a transfer method. It’s essentially the direct equivalent of the virtual debit cards most banks are offering these days.
It’s a wallet, it literally said so in the article. A proposed max of 3000 Euros, with the explicit drawback of losing the money when you lose the phone.