Portugal has it’s own network, Multibanco, and I know our central bank is working on a system targeted to the SEPA+ area. We already can send money to each other usong our phone number and our fiscal number.
I’m Portuguese and also lived in other countries in Europe and Multibanco is a vastly superior system to everything else I’ve seen, but on the ATM side rather than the payments side (everybody seems to have their own payment solution or, like the UK, rely on the likes of Visa and MasterCard) - already back in the 90s in Portuguese ATMs, in addition to withdrawing money, you could check your bank account balance, get a statement with the last transactions on your account and even pay your bills all this well before widespread internet access and online banking: that stuff was way ahead of its time back then.
Right now they’ve added stuff like touchless mobile payments and transfers, but the rest has caught up with them so you’ll find such solutions in most countries plus that whole system is entirely local as it’s the product of ages ago (before neoliberalism) the government forcing the banks to get together and create a company - SIBS - under shared ownership of the banks, responsible for setting up and managing a national interbank payment systems.
I wouod even say that the Multibanco system probably helps Portuguese banks maintain market lock-in against external competitors, which does get translated to Portugal having pretty high banking fees compared to the rest of Europe, especially for one of the poorest countries in the EU.
SIBS came up with virtual credit cards since at least 2009 - those are Visa or Mastercard cards, mind you, although that’s defined by the debit card that it’s associated with (so defined by the bank).
You can pay your bills in Portuguese ATMs, buy tickets, recharge your travel pass, withdraw money without a card, etc… makes most other systems seem like the stoneage.
Sempre achei interessante o quanto mais avançado o Multibanco era que o resto e geralmente só que viveu fora e dentro de Portugal usando os sistemas bancários de onde viveu é que se apercebe disso.
A nossa união bancária forçada, juntamente com a imposição do regulador, criou e ainda cria soluções interessantes. Entristece que os portugueses não sejam conscientes destes avanços.
Não é só em Portugal - por exemplo poucos têm noção que a razão pela qual a Europa estava na dianteira da technologia móvel no início (entre os anos 80 e para aí 2010) era porque usava um único standard - o GSM - algo que foi imposto pelos reguladores quando leiloaram o espetro móvel. Os Estados Unidos, entretanto, tinham vários standardes competitivos e não interoperáveis e até à era do smartphone estavam atrás da Europa na maioria das métricas de coisas como cobertura móvel, preços e adoção da tecnologia pelos consumidores (e por volta de 2010 tinha uníficado as redes deles à volta do GSM-3)
Eu diria mesmo que a maioría dos políticos na Europa do Presente, depois de 4 décadas de neo-liberalism e um prégar sem parar da Bíblia Da Desgregulamentação e Do Mercado Livre, esqueceram-se dessas lições, e isso inclui a maioria deles em Portugal, na minha opinião.
Portugal has it’s own network, Multibanco, and I know our central bank is working on a system targeted to the SEPA+ area. We already can send money to each other usong our phone number and our fiscal number.
That’s the customer-facing ATM network, i’m not so sure SIBS’s infrastructure doesn’t rely on Via/Mastercard, even if they provide SPEA facilities.
Multibanco existed way before Visa/Mastercard arrived here.
I’m Portuguese and also lived in other countries in Europe and Multibanco is a vastly superior system to everything else I’ve seen, but on the ATM side rather than the payments side (everybody seems to have their own payment solution or, like the UK, rely on the likes of Visa and MasterCard) - already back in the 90s in Portuguese ATMs, in addition to withdrawing money, you could check your bank account balance, get a statement with the last transactions on your account and even pay your bills all this well before widespread internet access and online banking: that stuff was way ahead of its time back then.
Right now they’ve added stuff like touchless mobile payments and transfers, but the rest has caught up with them so you’ll find such solutions in most countries plus that whole system is entirely local as it’s the product of ages ago (before neoliberalism) the government forcing the banks to get together and create a company - SIBS - under shared ownership of the banks, responsible for setting up and managing a national interbank payment systems.
I wouod even say that the Multibanco system probably helps Portuguese banks maintain market lock-in against external competitors, which does get translated to Portugal having pretty high banking fees compared to the rest of Europe, especially for one of the poorest countries in the EU.
SIBS came up with virtual credit cards since at least 2009 - those are Visa or Mastercard cards, mind you, although that’s defined by the debit card that it’s associated with (so defined by the bank).
You can pay your bills in Portuguese ATMs, buy tickets, recharge your travel pass, withdraw money without a card, etc… makes most other systems seem like the stoneage.
E eu a tentar ser resumido.
Sempre achei interessante o quanto mais avançado o Multibanco era que o resto e geralmente só que viveu fora e dentro de Portugal usando os sistemas bancários de onde viveu é que se apercebe disso.
A nossa união bancária forçada, juntamente com a imposição do regulador, criou e ainda cria soluções interessantes. Entristece que os portugueses não sejam conscientes destes avanços.
Não é só em Portugal - por exemplo poucos têm noção que a razão pela qual a Europa estava na dianteira da technologia móvel no início (entre os anos 80 e para aí 2010) era porque usava um único standard - o GSM - algo que foi imposto pelos reguladores quando leiloaram o espetro móvel. Os Estados Unidos, entretanto, tinham vários standardes competitivos e não interoperáveis e até à era do smartphone estavam atrás da Europa na maioria das métricas de coisas como cobertura móvel, preços e adoção da tecnologia pelos consumidores (e por volta de 2010 tinha uníficado as redes deles à volta do GSM-3)
Eu diria mesmo que a maioría dos políticos na Europa do Presente, depois de 4 décadas de neo-liberalism e um prégar sem parar da Bíblia Da Desgregulamentação e Do Mercado Livre, esqueceram-se dessas lições, e isso inclui a maioria deles em Portugal, na minha opinião.
Padronização faz falta e dá fruto e não elimina concorrência nem inovaçâo.