The EU is also looking into creating a digital euro ("eurocoin", so to speak). The basic idea being to break the power and thus risk of systemic banks.
You'd have an account at the ECB that you can keep your digital euros in and exchange to and for liquid euros. You'd get the ECB interest rate.
Then if banks want to convince you to hold your eurocoin on their wallet / exchange / stake it, they'd have to offer better features and better interest than the ECB.
Sadly banks are in full swing trying to torpedo the proposal with lobbying, to the point where there's a lot of noise about the ECB only being allowed to be a facilitator and not allowed to be actual competition to the bank, and instead it's banks that should get the sole right to hold digital euro accounts.
> But we enjoy pretty advanced banking services and arguably the most flourishing fintech ecosystem by worldwide standards
Interestingly enough the US does have very modern financial institutions: credit unions. An American woman I met in Vietnam and traveled together with for a bit had a Charles Schwab account that had more features, more free overseas withdrawals and a nicer mobile app than my Dutch bank. It was almost on par with Revolut / N26 / Bunq.
> Interestingly enough the US does have very modern financial institutions: credit unions. An American woman I met in Vietnam and traveled together with for a bit had a Charles Schwab account that had more features, more free overseas withdrawals and a nicer mobile app than my Dutch bank.
Charles Schwab is the 12th largest bank in the US by assets.
I do agree that credit unions can be great, however, the experience between them is wildly inconsistent. Some have apps that barely work, and some have decent apps that are a bit dated and clunky. The big banks generally have the best UX/support/etc.
> The EU is also looking into creating a digital euro
It's weird to call it a "digital euro" because the euro is already digitized by traditional banks! At an existing traditional bank, your balance is already a discrete number. Money can be sent and received electronically on communications networks without using physical media like coins and bills and cheques.