GNU Taler begins operating in Switzerland, distributed by the Taler Operations AG. Gnu Taler aims to be a “digital wallet” and has been used by the swiss national bank as well as the european national bank as a example for how a digital currency handed out by the state could work. It aims to be as privacy preserving as cash for the buyer while not allowing the seller to evade taxes.
Currently the Taler is brought out by a special organisation, the “Taler Operations AG”, and not the national bank, although both the national bank as well as the Taler Team have shown interest in a official digial currency by the national bank based on the Taler. But we need to relativate as the national council has stated that the introduction of a digital currency would probably take relatively major legislative changes and therefore take a bit of time.
Taler Ops doesn’t actually want to make money, those fees are only there to cover the cost of running the operation.
I alread explained it to u/platonicacid further up, so i’m just going to copy that comment:
It doesn’t want to. The Taler is a project by the university in Bern and the FOSS Group GNU to make a new, independent, free currency that is run by your national bank (or central bank in case you use the Euro) and independent from any corporations like banks, credit cards or payment providers like Paypal. Its purpose is to remove companies that make money from transactions from the circle.
The company here only wants to serve as a proof of concept that the Taler can work to get the swiss national bank to adopt it themselves. Their whole goal is to make themselves obsolete and not to make any money.
Hope that clears it up ^^