Storm clouds gather over America's financial supremacy

pseudolus

https://archive.ph/FKgMx

clayhacks

The article doesn’t mention it, but related is the global share of the US dollar as the reserve currency has been on a steady decline. Between that and the new payment structures discussed in this article we are rapidly approaching an era without American control on global financial systems. Which is a significant lever for soft power and non-military interventions

inference-god

How weird, strange ?

mertbio

Not sure how visible by the people in the US but a lot of companies and governments in Europe are working on many projects to decouple from the American companies for the critical infrastructure. Visa and Mastercard were mentioned in the article but I would also add PayPal into the list.

Havoc

Was always gonna happen, but recent US unreliability has definitely accelerated it

hirvi74

I suppose if one makes this prediction every year, he or she is bound to be right eventually.

johnea

The claims by VISA and Mastercard, that they are committed to nternational markets, adds up to a big 0. If the US government issues sanctions, they will comply. Countries outside the US are wise to pursue other infrastructure. The big surprise is that this problem has been ignored for so long. Of course, here in the US, we will not be alllowed a free instant payment system, because giving 3% of gross sales away to an absentee business, is patriotism 8-/

tmnvix

> But the more serious risk, Mr Lipsky notes, is that countries’ pursuit of payments sovereignty may one day mean various regional systems become incompatible. That would increase financial fraud and sanctions evasion. A risk from the US point of view, but for many states, this is quite the opposite - these developments are in large part aimed at removing the risk of US financial abuse in the form of unilateral sanctions.

amgreg

Does someone know how cross-border payments work, and why it would be complicated for countries to link up their sovereign systems? The article gives the example of Brazil and India, suggests there might be a “liquidity” bottleneck, but omits the details.