[alephnerd]

> why not a traditional, homegrown card that is a direct 1-to-1 alternative of MC/Visa cards

Because the European market is fragmented. France, Italy, Germany, etc all have some sort of established localized payment system and in some states like Ireland and the Netherlands are entirely dependent on Visa.

There is no "pan-European" bank and individual states still care about their sovereignity. France will continue to back and support BNP and Credit Agricole against Germany's Deutsche Bank (and vice versa). The only solution at that point is to just bypass the whole problem and just go directly with mobile payments.

Additionally, China, India, and Brazil began building their DPD stack in the 2000s but European states didn't start until the last 2-3 years.