[dataflow]

> The central bank controls what payments are permitted by what laws exist, not some risk management system that has decided that your legal purchase is too risky or some foreign state has applied sanctions against you.

That sounds worse to be honest. You're essentially asking for the government to be not only aware of but also able to control all digital payments. That upends how money has worked over (literally) millenia, and is an incredible risk to take. Giving someone in government the ability to block someone's payments and trusting they won't abuse it might be fine as long as good people remain in power, but do you really want to bet the entire nation's ability to live life on that?

Furthermore, wouldn't determining if a payment is legal require prying into details of the transaction that may violate your privacy? And if they make an incorrect determination based on stuff that really wasn't their business in the first place, they now have the force of government behind them, going far beyond merely declining the transaction.

I would think what you should want to advocate for is a system that cannot block payments (at least domestically) just like with cash, and enforcement either happens prior to enrollment, or after the fact through some other traditional law enforcement mechanism (warrants, etc.).

[dgoldstein0]

Not intending to defend either system but private financial institutions basically end up deputized as enforcement arms of anti money laundering and sanctions in the US and probably other countries where the payments systems are privatized. That's a why every bank has a big compliance department - the laws say a lot about who and what they can serve and they have to be on top of it.

Which yes means sometimes legit transactions that match rules meant to catch money laundering and other shady business get blocked or flagged. Sometimes out of avoidance of legal risk, rather than actual certainly anything illegal is happening.

I don't know if the centralized government implementation would be any better in that regard, but at least you could complain to the government instead of having a bank hide behind a law they didn't write but have to enforce.

[dataflow]

> Not intending to defend either system but private financial institutions basically end up deputized as enforcement arms of anti money laundering and sanctions in the US and probably other countries where the payments systems are privatized.

I feel like people get so distracted by the problems they see with the existing system that they completely miss just how much more dangerous things could get in a centralized government system. For example:

- The current system is distributed and does not let any central entity make the unilateral decision to block any given transaction. Even if you think of banks as deputies of the government, they still differ in how they evaluate and respond to risks, and you have some ability to go to alternative institutions when one of them is wrong. This isn't speculation, it's a fact that already plays out on a daily basis. You cannot do that with your government.

- Flagging a transaction is so incredibly different from blocking it. Flagging is surveillance, blocking is enforcement. It's one thing to get suspicious why I'm getting food at a particular vendor and demand that I explain myself afterward; it's a whole 'nother thing to remotely block me from getting it in the first place.

- Scalability matters. Letting the government be the middleman for all transactions lets the person at the controls block five transactions nearly just as easily as five million of them. Surveillance can get bad enough, yes, but do you really want to give them that much pre-judicial enforcement power too? Because they literally do not have that power currently.

- We had a live demo of what happens when government maintains a record of financial transactions (see the IRS and tax records). Play out what would've happened against a bank - would it have been worse?

[lobocinza]

You can move out of country but for that you need to buy tickets but your cards don't work anymore, your bank accounts are frozen, cash isn't acceptable anymore and digital currency isn't fungible.

[michaelt]

You're right that politicians can pressure private financial institutions into cutting off anyone they don't like. For example Operation Choke Point [1] which cut off legal-but-scandalous businesses' access to the financial system, and getting WikiLeaks debanked for publishing material that made the government look bad.

But some might see that as a sign you need more separation between the state and payment networks, rather than less.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

[ethbr1]

I think the ideal would be private banks enforcing exact legal rules (no fuzzy matches) and forwarding edge cases to the authorities (but not blocking them). All with transparency.

You don't want private banks in the business of fuzzy-matching (because they'll default to over-cautious, and it empowers the government to exploit grey areas to pressure them).

And you don't want the executive arm of the government too involved in day-to-day financial inspection (because executive can move at the speed of an edict, versus needing a law).

[ricardobeat]

Credit cards, iDeal, SWIFT, Paypal, Venmo, etc are all fully traceable. Anonimity at the protocol level is not a design goal for any of these.

Being worse is debatable: the main difference is the government being able to execute blocking on their own, vs having to convince all banking institutions to do it for them - doesn't sound hard as the govt will always have all the leverage.

Also important to note that BCB (the central bank in Brazil) is autonomous, and technically protected from political influence, thought that ground has been proven shaky.

[lobocinza]

Indeed the issue was leverage. The problem is CDBC. The govs plan is to end money fungibility. Once they get that leverage, MasterCard or central bank is just a detail.

[xinayder]

> That sounds worse to be honest. You're essentially asking for the government to be not only aware of but also able to control all digital payments. That upends how money has worked over (literally) millenia, and is an incredible risk to take. Giving someone in government the ability to block someone's payments and trusting they won't abuse it might be fine as long as good people remain in power, but do you really want to bet the entire nation's ability to live life on that?

There are financial laws that banks must comply with and one of them require banks to share information with the Central Bank about potential fraudulent transactions. Having a payment system using the CB's infrastructure doesn't change anything. They are still required to comply to bank secrecy laws and can only investigate your transactions after obtaining a warrant.

[dataflow]

> There are financial laws that banks must comply with and one of them require banks to share information with the Central Bank about potential fraudulent transactions. Having a payment system using the CB's infrastructure doesn't change anything.

That's just... a completely false assertion on its face? Putting the CB in the middle lets the CB (read: government) proactively block any set of transactions at will, and at scale, before anyone has any chance to litigate or otherwise dispute it. Which literally lets the government entirely cut off any citizen's ability to access the rest of human society. That makes no difference in your eyes vs. post-facto investigation/warrants/etc.?

We saw a live example of this with the IRS too, no? Do you think they would've had just as easy of a time accessing such financial records if they were held by a private entity than by the IRS itself?

[Fokamul]

Worse? Are you serious?

In EU, Czechia. Foreign(french lol) banks are banning accounts because you work in gun manufacturing industry. In EU. When 2 countries from you, there is a FCKIN' war happening.

Only because France, Germany, UK and similar countries are against guns and against self-defense, where your only option is to lay on the ground and let the attacker kill you.

Luckily we can still use guns for self-defense, we can conceal carry by default and we will fight EU laws till our death for this.

(pepper sprays, knives and even katana, whatever. Heh that's a joke, but for real, you can use that without any permit, in theory.)

EU Brusel is trying very hard to force these idiotic laws to every country.

Eg.: they forced limited mags for rifles.

We have bypassed that with local law haha, when you get a gun permit (which is not easy, but not impossible) you just fill a paper with "a gun buy order" for the police and you are by law allowed to have unlimited magazine, silencer and special JHP ammo. Reason self-defense and defense of your property (default reason, police will only check same thing they've checked for gun permit. Your criminal record).

And also luckily we don't need to use anything, because our criminality is a liiiiitle bit lower than France, Germany and UK. You know why.

But tide is changing, Poland will be biggest economy in EU in few years and their gun laws are also changing and we have a lot of common with them.

I believe together with other reasonable countries (Slovakia, Hungary etc.) We will overturn this idiocy comming from France, Germany and other "west" countries.

Btw I'm for EU, even for federalization of EU. But with US approach. EU should be no.1 country, yes country, in the world.

[joe_mamba]

>In EU, Czechia. Foreign(french lol) banks are banning accounts because you work in gun manufacturing industry. In EU. When 2 countries from you, there is a FCKIN' war happening.

That shouldn't be happening. French banks on Czech soil should operate under Czech, not French laws. Otherwise the Czech banking authorities should go after them. Something is fishy about that.

Also, which banks do French citizens working in the arms industry use if they're not allowed to? This is all very bizarre.

[Fokamul]

Yes this is very bizarre.

But this is official story, contractors and employees who worked for Czech arms manufacturer got their personal! accounts disabled.

They had mortgages in these accounts and bank notify them to move mortgage elsewhere.

Reason given by bank, broken internal policy, we cannot disclose which. Goodbye.

https://militarnyi.com/en/news/czech-banks-discriminate-agai...

[joe_mamba]

>Reason given by bank, broken internal policy, we cannot disclose which. Ridiculous.

I'm sure what they did was illegal, the problem with such cases is that even if you take them to court and win, you'll still lose a lot of time, money and stress in the process of fighting a bank in court, while for the bank the lawsuit is just another small business expense.

Centrain industries and businesses tend to act above the law even if they know they're in the wrong simply because the punishments if they get caught are too lax.

That's why I'm a big fan of direct personal accountability. Like the person working at the bank who made the choice to close the accounts should go to jail. Because otherwise nefarious people simply hide behind the accountability shield of a large org where nobody is responsible for anything and accountability is always deflected.

[econ]

Like big tech they may refuse service when they like to (which is crazy)

[l23k4]

Why is it crazy? EU has the "basic payment account" scheme which makes sure that ultimately nobody is left without a bank account.

[dormento]

> Reason given by bank, broken internal policy, we cannot disclose which. Goodbye.

Wow this sucks. One thing I took from this comment (and the previous one), if you allow me to (badly) synthesize is: we might need less policy making and more policy enforcement.

[l23k4]

Why? It's because of enforcement the bank is doing this.

The policies don't prohibit banks from getting rid of risky customers, they actively encourage it.

[joe_mamba]

What policies of local legal framework and the bank define as a "rksy customer" might vary completely.

For example many EU banks refuse service to US citizens due to them still being tax liable in their own country and the banks not waiting to deal with that shit. Or they refuse service to Iranians, Russians or other nationalities in case of conflicts. That's the definition of a risky customer and they're legally allowed to bail on.

But working legally in your nations arms industry is not the definition of a risky customer because you're a legal citizen with rights in your own country, your arms company operates legally with all the checks and approvals of the government, and the banks should as well. Therefore there's no risks coming from the customer here to the local bank because neither you or the employer are doing anything in gray legal areas to be a risk.

[hilios]

What is the french owned bank you're referring to? Your article mentions ČSOB (Belgian ownership)and Česká spořitelna (Austrian ownership). The source [1] also mentions issues with Fio bank, which according to Wikipedia has Czech owners. The source also attributes this to ESG rules, rather than supplying weapons to Ukraine. Last year, the European Commission launched a legislative initiative designed to make it easier for arms manufacturers to secure funding, including by clarifying the rules within the ESG framework regarding prohibited weapons.[2] I therefore find it hard to believe that the EU deliberately brought about the incidents described. Regardless of this, I do not consider it sensible to conflate the issues of ‘private gun ownership’ and ‘the financing of arms companies’.

[1]https://zpravy.aktualne.cz/ekonomika/ceska-ekonomika/na-hypo...

[2]https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-indus...

[l23k4]

Why is this supposed to be surprising? These kinds of customers are a huge compliance burden for the bank, why should the banks keep doing business with customers that most likely cost them money?

[joe_mamba]

Because the Czech branch of the French bank operates under Czech not French laws. French rules don't have jurisdiction in Czechia.

[l23k4]

That has nothing to do with why this is happening.

[l23k4]

>In EU, Czechia. Foreign(french lol) banks are banning accounts because you work in gun manufacturing industry. In EU. When 2 countries from you, there is a FCKIN' war happening.

Why do you think this is special? US banks will do this too lmao.

There's not a single serious bank in the world that wouldn't consider this an incredibly high risk industry. The compliance load for banks is incredible, especially if you're selling those weapons internationally.

>Only because France, Germany, UK and similar countries are against guns and against self-defense, where your only option is to lay on the ground and let the attacker kill you.

All EU countries and the UK use pretty much the same wording when it comes to self defense. ECHR limits what the states can allow, Czechia isn't allowed to e.g. pass a law allowing you to shoot anyone who enters your home.

[dormento]

> In EU, Czechia. Foreign(french lol) banks are banning accounts because you work in gun manufacturing industry.

I don't think that's how its supposed to work. So IF you're correct and a French entity of any kind is found breaking current Czech laws, THEN this must be reported and action must be taken against it, no matter the law, no discussions here.

> Only because France, Germany, UK and similar countries are against guns and against self-defense, where your only option is to lay on the ground and let the attacker kill you.

This is a big reduction to the absurd, and unnecessarily inflammatory. I'm no dang, but I would ask you to please refrain from such things, in the name of civil discourse. It could have been dishonestly framed in a number of other ways, for example, "Poland as a country is pro-violence and pro-crime, since they are arguably fond of shooting people". I know this must not be as simple, as "laying on the ground and letting the attacker kill you" does not look like a sound defense strategy. However, gun collecting and sports are not, to me, good reasons for owning firearms. To each their own.

> Luckily we can still use guns for self-defense, we can conceal carry by default and we will fight EU laws till our death for this.

> (pepper sprays, knives and even katana, whatever)

Wow, go Brussels I guess. Hope they can eventually implement the "idiotic laws" that make people unable to kill each other with katanas.

[lobocinza]

The state has the power to cancel a person. If MasterCard denies to service you well at least you can look for a competitor or sue. Anyway digital authoritarianism is inevitable. PIX and this Euro system are steps towards CDBCs.

[jdub]

> Giving someone in government the ability to block someone's payments and trusting they won't abuse it might be fine as long as good people remain in power, but do you really want to bet the entire nation's ability to live life on that?

Banking and finance companies honour foreign government sanctions. Ask Francesca Albanese.

Libertarian comparisons of government and non-government behaviour always devolves into angel counting.