[cm277]

As an entrepreneur with businesses in both the US and EU, a federation is probably several steps too far from political will. Instead:

- Let banks operate and merge across borders, especially neobanks/fintechs. European banks are easily 10+ yrs ahead of the US in terms of tech and customer service but they lack scale and capital, especially in the credit side of things.

- Credit, again: we need the equivalent of D&B/Fico for Europe: a single credit bureau that can judge creditworthiness of people and organizations. Even the US has solved this through private companies, why can't Europe? Fellow Euros are shocked when I tell them that a 0-day LLC in the US can get $20k in credit card limits almost immediately.

The rest are easy, especially for web/internet companies. But if we have to raise credit/money based on the rules of the biggest (and slowest!) economies, then the EU is fucked.

[tonyedgecombe]

>Let banks operate and merge across borders, especially neobanks/fintechs.

I'm not sure more centralisation of banking is a good idea. Too big to fail and all that. The UK has never really recovered from the banking crisis thanks to its oversized financial activities.

[cm277]

Oh, you mean the declining economy with (checks notes) the largest startup ecosystem in Europe? :-)

[thrance]

> Credit, again: we need the equivalent of D&B/Fico for Europe

Hell no, please! If recent years have shown anything, it's that the US shouldn't serve as a blueprint for the EU, or any other aspiring federation.

[direwolf20]

What stops you spending $20k and declaring bankruptcy for your LLC?

Credit scores are probably illegal in the EU due to the laws against mass surveillance.

[cm277]

You got it, FICO/Equifax/Transunion stop it. The $20k is basically raised on the founders' credit, not the LLCs; richer founders can get a lot more credit right up front. And yes, FICO is probably infeasible in the EU with current laws, that's the point. Fix that first, these businesses are just as critical as actual banks.

[disgruntledphd2]

They're definitely not. You can 100% have a list of late payments on loans by person and business. This already exists in some places.

You can't hoover up every other piece of personal data to build it, but you could definitely get consent to access this information for other loans.