[thibaut_barrere]

It is one of these instances where « let the market decide » is not necessarily the best option on the long run.

[fsuts]

The market wants to take a cut per transaction, perpetually. At a high profit margin.

This is one where not the market but a country/group of countries need to rollout their own public payments so fees are minimal to zero.

[ezst]

You mean, communism?

(/s but you never know especially these days)

[retired]

Ideal was a result of free market banking though.

> The system was conceived by the Dutch banks ABN Amro, ING Bank, Postbank N.V. and Rabobank, to develop a single system for online payments that could be used by all banks.

Currently owned by EPI:

> The European Payments Initiative (EPI) is a unified digital payment service launched in 2020 and backed by sixteen founding European banks and payment service providers.

[microtonal]

Before iDEAL we had a similar mess with different banks and even a telco pushing their own payment system. It was basically the Dutch webshop foundation (thuiswinkel.org, basically the webshop lobby) that said: f*ck it banks, clean up your mess! And so it happened.

They even tried to extend it to other European countries in 2011: https://www.bnnvara.nl/kassa/artikelen/ideal-in-de-ban-van-m...

[Muromec]

Ideal is great. The missing part of the free market is that the other part of it (consumers) expecting you to not be an asshole.

[TulliusCicero]

I mean you could have a single protocol and then various different providers still competing, like email, or how even for Visa or Mastercard there's a bunch of different banks that partner up.