In Denmark, we have the Dankort which is a national debit card that can be used to make payments in Denmark. The card itself is often combined with a Visa/Mastercard chip, so it can also be used abroad.
Domestically, it is cheaper for stores to process payments via Dankort compared to VISA/Mastercard, but the card is slowly dying due to competition from the latter.
Do you have a similar debit card in your country? Given the geopolitical situation with the USA, do you think it is time to make a European alternative to VISA/Mastercard? Such that American companies don’t get a percentage share of payments made in Europe – by Europeans.
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UK: Not any more. There was Switch, which I think was owned by the banks that used it, but it has morphed over the years into MasterCard Debit via Maestro.
Ireland: Laser suffered the same fate.
Germany has the Girocard interbank network..
Having national and regional systems are definitely a good idea regardless of where you are aligned geopolitically. No-one would want to be forced to implement another country’s sanctions against a target that your government is not sanctioning just because your predominate way of moving money electronically is a Visa or a MasterCard.
Debit cards are standard here, you get one with your bank-account. Credit cards are not a thing here, you only might need one if you go further abroad, but I can pay just fine with my debit card in Belgium and Germany.
Yes, in Slovenia it’s called Activa, but all cards are also co-branded Visa or Mastercard.
I am not entirely sure how it works, only one bank seems to display the Activa logo on the cards, and their website is archived. Hm …
We do, it’s called Multibanco. It works the same way, as far as I can tell.
Jep in Belgium it’s called Bankcotact works exactly the same, and its also liked to the online payment method Payconiq which is becoming wero for
All debit cards from Belgian banks are bankcontact, combined with either visa or Mastercard for transactions outside Belgium.
With most banks you get it for free with your bankaccount. Which is also why credit cards are rare here.
It’s not going away because buying a share of Bankcontact is part of getting a banking license in Belgium.
France has the “CB” network (for Carte Bancaire, banking card), which is present on most cards nowadays in addition to Visa or Mastercard.
Fun fact: most people in France say “carte bleue” (blue card) when talking about a banking card. It used to be the name of a former national network before the trademark was acquired by Visa in 2010…
Yes, my bank in Italy issues cards with the 2 national circuits known as Bancomat (Bancomat is the circuit for the ATM withdrawal system + PagoBancomat for the actual POS trancations system) together with an international circuit such as VISA or Mastercard. My bank integrates as well 2 additional circuits: Moneta (not sure what is it and what is used for) and FastPay (used for highway tolls transactions).
Maestro was something like that for us. But it’s in the end of life phase.
instead of 0.5% we now pay 2-8% to visa/Mastercard/Amex. If the bank would take that amount from each salary people would be in arms. But for credit card companies it is ok to charge companies?
“Lucky” us, we could switch to 100% bank transfer and no longer accept cards or cash. 8% on top of tge inflation? people won’t buy at that price.
I don’t think so. Our debit cards are Visa or Mastercard. I think we also have Maestro.
Can’t wait for the digital Euro, so we don’t need any intermediate company like Visa or Mastercard
No, I don’t think so. In the early 2000s, local banks issued domestic-only cards. They were often valid only within Romania and used basic magnetic stripe tech. But they weren’t part of a national card scheme, just limited-function cards for use at local ATMs or POS terminals.
We used to have, long ago. “Köpkort” (Literally “Buying card) that was around from the 60’s to 80’s and the Eurocard that was around for about as long as the Köpkort. None of them exist today, we use Mastercard or Visa.
Besides the ones already mentioned here, there is also BankAxept in Norway, and I’ve understood that PostFinance is the Swiss system. Spain has its own Redsys network although it isn’t a card brand. Canada also has its Interac card.
The problem is that while the local schemes offer local alternatives and competition to Visa and Mastercard, they are also deeply national and defensive so that they are not currently able to offer any Europe wide alternative.
Lithuania had domestic Globus cards in 1990s but as they were restricted only to Lithuania, their network was disabled in 2002 as most of users opted for Visa and MC that can be used globally.