Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

Re:Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun by jsiepkes on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @11:12AM (#46961878)

In the Netherlands, before VISA, there already was a national debit card standard called PIN [1]. Sure, times have changed and it's probably not super easy, but it's also not going to be super hard.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIN_(debit_card)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun by RealityVoid on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @11:53AM (#46962790)

I think most people miss that the biggest hurdle is political. Once a political will exists, this system will come to exist.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun by anal_reactor on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @11:36AM (#46962398)

Fun fact: until about a year ago it was not possible to pay using normal debit cards in most Dutch shops, you had to have a local card. I distinctly remember that AH, Vomar and Jumbo would typically reject foreign cards while Lidl and Dirk would typically accept them. Of course there were exceptions, but that was the rule of thumb.

Most Dutch people were unaware of the issue (because Dutch cards worked abroad), and those who were, were fully convinced that it's because Dutch system is objectively better (it wasn't, it was just a separate network). Then in like 2024/2025 Visa and Mastercard finally retired their special V-Pay and Maestro brands, and now most terminals in the Netherlands accept most normal cards.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun by dcrazy on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @11:39AM (#46962475)

Was V-Pay different from Visa Electron?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun by wellf on Wednesday February 11, 2026 @04:16AM (#46972716)

A card I can tap on a vending machine anywhere in the world. Crypto was probably the hope to compete but that didn't pan out.

[ Parent | on HN ]