It was an open secret in the industry for a long time.
Mastercard and Visa want to enforce their own debit and credit cards.
The fight has been raging for a long time, but so far it has only been minor skirmishes.
Now, however, the hardest option is drawn.
Mastercard buries the international applicability of debit cards, in Germany as well as in Europe and around the world.
This is the famous gun on the chest: Either you take a debit or credit card from us, or you can see where you are.
Now it's time to show your colors. Do Europeans really want to put the entire payment infrastructure in the hands of two American credit card companies? In extreme cases, this could mean, for example, that local cards could no longer be used internationally as a result of sanctions. It doesn't have to be. On the one hand, Europe has already shown that it can master international payment infrastructures with the old ec cards. On the other hand, the European Payments Initiative (EPI), which includes numerous banks, was founded precisely for this purpose. It should act as a counterbalance to the American payment giants, be it the credit card providers, PayPal or Google Pay or Apple Pay. That will cost Europe billions.
But if the banks don't step in now, all payments will only be processed with US service providers.
This dependency can be dangerous and cost a lot of money - both for users and banks.