[__rito__]

Is Wero something you can hold in your hands?

RuPay is just like Visa/Mastercard in the sense you get physical cards that you can use at ATMs, use at ecomm sites, etc.

Wero doesn’t seem to be that. Am I missing something? Does making a new direct alternative to Visa/MC doesn’t make sense for the EU? If so, why?

[lxgr]

Cards (as implemented in the US at least, i.e., with individual purchases not confirmed by the cardholder) are a relic of a different time in many ways.

If you're building out a brand new system, why not make use of the computing device with input/output capabilities (that can be used to confirm amount, payee etc.) almost everybody already has in their pocket/purse anyway and instead rely on merchants being honest and only taking what they're owed out of your account without your confirmation?

Of course physical cards will also play some role in any future EU payment system, if for nothing other than resiliency (a card works without any battery and is cheap to keep in a drawer or suitcase as a backup for a stolen phone) and sovereignty (note who makes most phones' operating systems and runs their attestation providers).

[cherryteastain]

> If you're building out a brand new system, why not make use of the computing device with input/output capabilities

There is no sovereign EU mobile OS. Adding a hard dependency to Android/iOS is removing one US hard dependency in your payment stack to add another. So, physical cards are a must until there is a European mobile OS with widespread adoption (i.e. never).

Unfortunately, the EU approach here has been not only adding this iOS/Android hard dependency, but also locking it down with crap like device attestation to make sure that it is impossible to use their "sovereign" systems without a US corporation (Google/Apple) certified device. They are actively hostile to alternatives like Lineage or Graphene for instance.

[lxgr]

Yes, I acknowledged that in my second paragraph.

[__rito__]

Okay, thanks. I get it.

ATM cards are still safer than mobile based payments.

Elderly fraud in the US, scam/fraud calls and digital arrests in India are made possible by social engineering attacks and duping people.

For ATMs, if one has online transactions turned off (default option when you get a new card in India for most if not all cards), it is impossible. One has to walk to an ATM in a crowded place, insert the card, enter a PIN, and can only then withdraw money.

Millions in India use debit cards this way.

[lxgr]

> ATM cards are still safer than mobile based payments.

> For ATMs, if one has online transactions turned off (default option when you get a new card in India for most if not all cards), it is impossible. One has to walk to an ATM in a crowded place, insert the card, enter a PIN, and can only then withdraw money.

So you're really saying that not being able to transact cashlessly at all is safer than being able to do so? I'd agree, but it's also somewhat inconvenient.

[toomuchtodo]

The largest payment systems in the world, in China [1] [2], India [3], Brazil's Pix [4] etc, leverage QR codes and other non card primitives for moving value. You can encode EMV [5] in a QR code [6].

> Wero doesn’t seem to be that. Am I missing something? Does making a new direct alternative to Visa/MC doesn’t make sense for the EU? If so, why?

To avoid US government control of your payments and US corporate payment processor extraction of value via your payment flows. How do you avoid someone else controlling your infra? You instantiate, operate, and maintain your own infra. Brazil runs their instant payment system Pix for ~$10M/year, for example. The cost is very reasonable to do so.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/AskAChinese/comments/1qgq6ya/why_di...

[2] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/chinas-digital-payments-r...

[3] https://easebuzz.in/explainers/upi/upi-qr-code/

[4] https://dev.to/woovi/how-does-pix-qrcode-work-5e3k

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV

[6] https://www.w3.org/2020/Talks/emvco-qr-20201021.pdf