If the US had any foresight it could stave this off by making its own global payments system be the one with the lowest fees, and thereby keep people using US currency and US institutions.
Whereas if you give other countries the obvious win that they can stop paying ~3% of their entire economy to a foreign payments network then you lose the fees anyway and that other stuff on top of it.
> Whereas if you give other countries the obvious win that they can stop paying ~3% of their entire economy to a foreign payments network
To be fair:
- 3% is on the higher end of the fees amounts. In the EU they are now capped at 0.3% for example
- part of the interchange fee goes to the issuing bank, which is usually local
> If the US had any foresight it could stave this off by making its own global payments system be the one with the lowest fees,
What global payments system? We have the worst payment systems in the developed world.
The US money transfer situation is so bad that all the major banks got tired of The Fed's incompetence...and simply bypassed The Fed. That's how we ended up with Zelle, which actually does instantaneous (or at least within minutes) transfers.
In 2026 it is virtually impossible to quickly move money from one account to another because every single bit of it has to pass through the US Federal Reserve's ancient systems. We're the laughing stock of the rest of the world's banking systems. Thirty years ago europeans could walk into a store, do a fund transfer to pay for something, and walk out. We still can't do that.
Literally the only way to buy something expensive in a store in the US is via credit card.
You can't use a debit card because of transaction limits and lack of consumer protections.
You can't use any of the "app" payment methods.
You can't do wire transfers.
You can't do checks because the US check clearing system is so bad, a check can initially clear (after a day or five), and then weeks later, bounce.
You can't do cash because it's now legal for cops to consider having an unusual amount of cash to be enough for reasonable suspicion and they've done some gymnastics that allow them to seize the cash and keep it even if the person is not charged or charges are dismissed.
Notice that this is entirely a regulatory problem. Do we imagine that entrepreneurs in the US can't produce the technology for a good payments system? That's not the reason. The reason is that anyone who wants to build it gets squished by the regulators captured by Visa and Mastercard because they don't want anything that would take away their cut.
Zelle made it through by having various limitations that make it hard for it to displace credit cards, and even that took decades before it happened.
> You can't use a debit card because of transaction limits and lack of consumer protections.
My debit card is branded Visa so it has the Visa Zero Liability protections, and I can raise the purchase limit from $6k to $25k using the app.
Zelle is not actually instantaneous. It is a frontend to ACH. The clearing of transactions still takes days.
It’s not just about cost, it’s about control and sovereignty. Other countries do not want to have their payment systems rug pulled at the whim of whomever US voters decide to put into office each election cycle. The cost to build your own is reasonable compared to what losing the capability costs.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Europe Fights to Loosen America’s Grip on Payment Systems - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/europe-fi... | https://archive.today/o699I - June 16th, 2026
China nears launch of mBridge as alternative to Swift – report - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48636931 - June 2026
> Other countries do not want to have their payment systems rug pulled at the whim of whomever US voters decide to put into office each election cycle.
Which is the reason the US is also shooting itself in the foot every time it rug pulls them.
If you want people to trust and rely on your thing then you kind of need to avoid being untrustworthy and unreliable.
If trust and reliability were a priority for America, we wouldn't be where we are today.