[Cryptography] Banks are not all the same, My Identity definitely not Satoshi Nakamoto

[efc at disroot.org]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2024, John Levine wrote:

> According to efc--- via cryptography <efc at disroot.org>:
>>> If this is a topic you care about, how about spending a few minutes seeing what
>>> the situation actually is?
>>
>> You have a good point John. If it is possible to use without a
>> smartphone (I don't own one) I will keep this in mind until next time.
>
> I use Wise and XE from my laptop web browser.  Works fine.  They probably
> require Javascript but that's life these days.
>
> With regard to the credit union idea, they mostly don't exist in
> Europe other than in Ireland. For the issue at hand, paying people in
> other countries, they are not going to be any better than any other
> small bank. Probably they're worse since they're usually locally
> oriented and deliberately focus on single employer or city.

True. But I like the idea of a credit union to solve my local needs, and 
something else for the complicated stuff. I just read that where I live, 
the government just regulated the price of "basic banking"-packages to 1 
EUR per month as of 1/1 2025. Of course I immediately told the enemy to 
change to that plan. I will save 1 EUR per month, but I fully expect them 
to recoup that by increasing the price for my business account. =/

If I would be rich, I'd start my own bank!

> R's,
> John
>
> PS: On the other hand, there are banks like the misleadingly named
> Community Federal Savinks Bank which exist only to be the glue between
> non-bank startups and the real financial system.  They're plenty
> sophisticated but impressively opaque.
>