Speaking on The Pat Kenny Show, Lagarde underscored Europe’s dependence on foreign digital payment infrastructure. “Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Alipay are all controlled by American or Chinese companies,” she noted, arguing, “We should make sure there is a European offer.”
But all of that is possible now. What exactly are we trying to change?
It’s possible in principle now. But not actually. There’s no button the ECB can press. Quite relatedly, the German government wanted to distribute its income from CO2 taxes to the people and had lots of trouble actually getting bank details for everyone.