Wiebe Ruttenberg of the European Central Bank has stated that the European Banks should introduce an European Debitcard system or they would lose that market to the American, Japanese en Chinese banks.
Cause of it all is the introduction of the Single European Payment Area (SEPA). The introduction of SEPA could have the effect of the disappearance of Nation Payment systems as the Dutch pinpas system.
Another example of the over regulating effect of Europe. It looks like nobody has heard of the KISS system, Keep It Simple Stupid!
The pinpas is a cost effective and widely used system in the Netherlands. The big drawback of credit- and debit card systems is the big overhead and the fact that it is very expensive. I am sure that other countries also local systems which work effective and at low costs. Why try and throw that away for something which most probably is a bad solution?