alt Hacker NewsHow does digital euro replace credit cards? That's basically the same as direct debit. It doesn't address the reason why I use credit cards.
I use credit cards as a proxy for my bank accounts. I know that my issuing bank will protect me from all fraud so I don't have to worry about losing money if I buy something from a fraudulent merchant. I also know I can do things like chargebacks if I have to.
None of this is addressed by digital currency, it's basically like using cash which is haphazard today when there are so many scams everywhere around the world.
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So you're really using credit cards as a proxy for a consumer-friendly (at least with regard to fraud/disputes) payments product.
Credit cards being more consumer friendly than bank transfers is usually an artifact of the concrete implementation, not the abstract concept. In many EU/SEPA countries, returning a direct debit is much easier than a chargeback in the US, for example. In some countries, people even consider credit cards as less secure because filing a chargeback takes marginally longer with most banks (and requires a letter as opposed to a single click in online banking).
If the digital euro is to succeed, it'll of course have to compete with cards on the usability side as well.
I was wondering about this. I wonder if there are insurance products to close this gap? Or maybe some banks offer accounts with different kinds of purchase protection.
I'm with you. While I'm no fan of the risk involved with missing a CC payment, there's a mountain of difference between credit and debit when it comes to fraud. It's literally you trying to get your money back (debit) versus some giant corporation trying to get _its_ money back (credit).
> How does digital euro replace credit cards? That's basically the same as direct debit. It doesn't address the reason why I use credit cards.
Exactly, it is just their latest marketing move to have people accept it.
I was in a meeting at the ECB 6 years ago, the digital euro was high priority and we were supposed to see the first pilot 5 years ago.
The project is actually older and I saw schematic of the system and screenshot and the management interface 6 years ago. It was developed by a German company.
I am not sure why we are not using it right now... it can either be:
- the urgency, like upcoming financial collapse, disappeared,
- the bank lobbied so hard they killed the previous design,
- the EU is just insanely incompetent.
For a lot of Americans the credit card system is another tax on being poor:
People with stable jobs and good credit qualify for no-fee credit cards with rewards / cashback. As a consumer you benefit financially from having a credit card. Those elsewhere in the thread worried about "debt" - you just set to auto-withdrawl the entire balance of the card every month from your bank account. Now you have free money. I can't think of a reason not to take advantage of this system in some way.
But people with unstable jobs and poor credit help subsidize these "higher-end" credit cards when they pay high interest rates on their because they missed payments or hold a balance over multiple months. For those people credit cards could help with monthly cashflow issues but are essentially a scam and not much better than payday loans.
Yet another system that American consumers are kind of forced to participate in that's a sort of tragedy of the commons (high-reward cards wouldn't exist without the exploitation of other people not savvy enough to avoid high interest and fees)
Your transactions aren't tied to some provider in New York blocking you over night?
It’s fancy instant payments, which most of the developed world already has. The question is which unnecessary intermediaries do you continue to remove as you refactor legacy financial infra.
Credit card rails are expensive legacy rails, that part of the stack is the target to disrupt in this context. In the context of the digital euro, you can think of it as a demand deposit account backed by the central bank (as most fiat deposit accounts are in some way) that is portable between banks, like you’d move a US investment account that can hold securities between brokers with ACATS at the clearinghouse.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48415854 (recent subthread with some related context)
Global instant payment system map: https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea... [pdf]
In EU most people use direct debit. The term "credit card" is almost synonymous with debit. Chargebacks theoretically exists but they are more complicated, I don't know anyone who ever did that.