this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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Hey guys!

Visa and Mastercard are the 8th and 15th biggest companies in the world, worth more than 1.1T USD (!!!).

For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.

That's one the biggest waste of money from EU you can imagine.

I'm trying to find viable alternatives but except paying cash it seem there is no real alternative. Even in where I live there is an alternate payment service but they take the money from my mastercard, duh...

And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?

Edit: Bitcoin would be a solution if widely adopted, but more realistic would be something accepted by every cashier machine, and if possible using the NFC of your phone, a kind of "Apple/Google" Pay, that goes directly from your bank to the bank's shop. Where I live all debit cards are either visa or mastercard...

Edit2: There is an EU initiative that seem to be starting with WERO, never heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative

Edit3: It seem that Paysafecard and Skrill are EU solutions and sometimes proposed in the payment method, but not with STRIPE payment solutions

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[โ€“] alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Wero will become the replacement over time.

But for now, you're stuck with Visa and Mastercard if your country doesn't have a local alternative.

Just get the cheapest option.

[โ€“] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 20 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Wero flew by my radar, thanks for the hint. Three of my banks even support it already, awesome!

[โ€“] jagermo@feddit.org 10 points 3 days ago

Wero can win if the banks offer it with no additional cost to stores and, and this ia crucial, it offers credit and the blocking of funds for stuff like car rentals.

It needs to be as easy a visa/MasterCard and cheaper / easier to run with the same features. I have hope, but that is a tough order.

It will take a while to replace Visa/MasterCard

For now it's only trying to replace PayPal no?

[โ€“] Technoworcester@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago

Awesome! Did not know of this. Will investigate.

[โ€“] alfredon996@feddit.it 47 points 3 days ago (1 children)

China has UnionPay, Japan has JCB, Russia has MIR. Europe should have its own credit card network

[โ€“] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 33 points 3 days ago (2 children)

"EUROCARD"

Sounds nice as well

Make it blue with stars on it and the globe displaying a space picture of earth with europe

[โ€“] atro_city@fedia.io 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

@EUCommission@ec.social-network.europa.eu let's make this happen, mkay?

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Have you looked into American Express?

oh shit, nevermind.

[โ€“] Sliversun@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

A local debit card is your best bet

[โ€“] jagermo@feddit.org 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Maestro is part of MasterCard.

[โ€“] Renohren@lemmy.today 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Maestro isn't a local system it's a limited debit card like electron for visa. Other comments are about national Credit cards. WERO is the only European network pushed by the ECB (and begrudgingly taken up by most major European banks). It piggy backs on the Free-of-charge instant wiring SEPA system.

[โ€“] Flamekebab@piefed.social 10 points 4 days ago

TIL Maestro still exists

[โ€“] knightly@pawb.social 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Those still go through the bank card system.

Use cash.

[โ€“] minilemmy@feddit.org 8 points 3 days ago (4 children)

How do you pay cash online?

And I donโ€™t think the banking system is evil and should be destroyed, I just want the EU to be strong and independant, have tech and finance sovreinty

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[โ€“] wirebeads@lemmy.ca 15 points 4 days ago

In Canada we have Interac. Works great.

[โ€“] petrescatraian@libranet.de 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?

Use cash

[โ€“] TwigletSparkle@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

A sensible stopgap solution, but doesn't really work for big purchases or online shopping.

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[โ€“] HubertManne@piefed.social 13 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Bitcoin uses way to much energy to use as currency like that. gridcoin or any other one that uses proof of stake would be better if accepted but its a bit nicer if the energy put into it results in a useful product which gridcoin does.

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[โ€“] Sequence5666@lemmy.world 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This might not help you OP, but alternative to VISA and Mastercard is UPI. India and some south east asian countries use that for transactions rapidly. Also India also built Rupay (not the currency) to break visa and mastercards duopoly.

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[โ€“] CAVOK@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (3 children)

If you're in the Nordics I suggest Vipps/Mobilepay/Swish as payment methods.

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[โ€“] harcesz@szmer.info 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

In Poland we have a local system called Blik, based on codes similar to the 2FA ones. There's also promising projects like GNU Taler, but I don't thinks that's even starting to be used already.

[โ€“] jioliooo@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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[โ€“] exchange12rocks@lemm.ee 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Easy: iDEAL (which is a shitty system, but still..)

[โ€“] slazer2au@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Doest that only work in NL?

[โ€“] cocolowlander@feddit.nl 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

iDEAL has been acquired by WERO which is an EU initiative for pan-European payment system. Wero is being rolled out by banks in France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxemburg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative

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[โ€“] victorz@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.

I'm not sure I understand this. The stores would be the ones to pay this fee, no? Not you with your money. The price of some item doesn't change depending on whether you use cash or a debit or credit card. Not usually anyway, maybe a small local shop has done this to me once or twice in my life. Or maybe a fair stand or something.

If we wanted to stop giving Mastercard and Visa "our" money, we would have to all band together as a world community and boycott them. ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong!

Edit: I mean, yes, of course the price of those small transactions are included in the price of the item. So we are all "paying" Mastercard and Visa money, even those who aren't using them. Which is still to my point that we need to all band together as a world community to boycott them, which seems futile in all honesty.

[โ€“] Saleh@feddit.org 23 points 4 days ago

While the shop pays the fee, the fee is priced in and still the money ends up going to the card company based on your purchase.

We had this topic a lot with the tariffs recently. Yes technically the tariffs are paid by the importer or exporter. Doesn't change the fact that they end up being part of the consumer price (which is one of the purposes of tariffs)

[โ€“] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes you're correct.
However, those costs are ultimately passed to you, as higher prices are the only 'trickle' that consumers will receive.

[โ€“] Obi@sopuli.xyz 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Indeed, and if you're not using MC/Visa, then the vendors just happily pocket the difference.

[โ€“] Kualdir@europe.pub 4 points 3 days ago

At least it stays in the EU in that case

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[โ€“] minilemmy@feddit.org 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

You are absolutely correct

Now I just prefer my (or the store's money if you prefer) to recycle in the EU. We need it.

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[โ€“] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Technically you're right. The merchant pays the fee. But, those transactional costs are overall calculated into the prices. Like everything else e.g. transportation, packaging, wages, theft, breakage etc. So in the end it's the customer paying those 2-3% even though no price changes if you change payment.

As for the boycott: yes, sure. Voting with your wallet always works. The problem is how deeply they're burrowed into the system globally. The merchant doesn't care, it wants its money in whatever way. But if they don't offer an alternative, you can't boycott it (unless you erase that product from your life or find another merchant). And if you don't boycott it, they don't offer an alternative. Also most people simply don't care at all....

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[โ€“] AlexisFR@jlai.lu 5 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Use the Carte Bancaire network in France,we have that at least.

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[โ€“] jagermo@feddit.org 5 points 4 days ago

Contact the ECB and demand a digital Euro

[โ€“] epyon22@programming.dev 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

What about just old school cash?

[โ€“] victorz@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Can't order anything online with cash. ๐Ÿ˜ฉ

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[โ€“] pmtriste@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Here in Portugal we have MB Way which is handled on a separate network. I understand that it might interoperate with Bancomat (Italy) and Bizum (Spain) also just since November, but I haven't tried yet. Almost everybody in Portugal (except non-integrating expats) seem to use it, though there are spots here and there that refuse for reasons that are unclear to me.

[โ€“] Buffalox@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I'd like to know if something works for all of EU. Because that's the only reason for me to have Visa.
Everything in my own country can be handled with "Dankort" our national universally accepted debit card. We also have local Mobile pay which is also pretty universal here.

But those don't work for purchases outside Denmark.

[โ€“] knightly@pawb.social 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Just use cash.

I get that it can be a hassle to carry around, but it's the only "real" alternative if you want to keep third party companies from profiling you based on your spending habits and selling that personal info to advertisers.

[โ€“] cocolowlander@feddit.nl 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That's not an option for a lot of countries that are going cashless. In Netherlands (we have our own payment service) a lot of merchants are cashless.

[โ€“] knightly@pawb.social 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

"Going cashless" is a scam designed to rake in payment processing fees from an entire economy. Cash is the enemy to these companies because it's a form of payment they can't profit from.

If it isn't an option, then you should refuse to do business as much as possible. Take your money out of their hands.

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