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Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

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Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#331

Post by spockz »

IvanK_net wrote: post #329

The worst part is, that the fee for a card payment is shared between Visa/MasterCard and your bank. Bank transfers within a country are often free of charge, but are quite uncomfortable to make (typing numbers) and usually are not sent immediately (so that you can not pay this way in a grocery store). Banks have no interest in making bank transfers easier or faster, or opening up to cheaper competitors of Visa/Master…

We have instant transfers between banks here in the Netherlands. It is coming for the whole EER.

Some payment terminals now can also generate a QR code that you can use to pay, in addition to the normal debit/credit card payments.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#332

Post by tappio »

daveoc64 wrote: post #212
jpkoning wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good news on the competition front. The traditional problem with bank-to-bank transfers in a retail, or point-of-sale, setting has been speed. Cheque was about the fastest that could be mustered. But with developments like UK Faster Payments (which is mentioned in your link) bank-to-bank transfers are getting faster, in some cases instant. And so usability at the point-of-sale is now on par with cards. In Hol…

I can't really see bank transfers taking of at the point of sale in the UK. Making a payment with most banking apps is very clunky - especially for the first time with 2FA. As a consumer, a credit or debit card gives me a lot of protection. I wouldn't give that up for anything (oh, and the cashback I get too).

That's what most people said 10 years ago about the mobile payments (mobile bank to bank transfers, not related apple or Google pay) in the Nordics, but no one is doubting it anymore.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#333

Post by neil_s »

gruez wrote: post #157
ComputerGuru wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interchange fee pricing is set based on how much MasterCard charges the bank That’s not true though, or at least is a massive oversimplification. In the US, interchange fees are extremely inflated to allow banks to recuperate the rewards they give out to distinguish their card offerings from one another. The 2% cashback has to come from somewhere.

>In the US, interchange fees are extremely inflated to allow banks to recuperate the rewards they give out to distinguish their card offerings from one another. The 2% cashback has to come from somewhere. And that's a bad thing, because it's essentially the poor subsidizing the rich. People who aren't able to get credit cards (or the "good" cash back credit cards) tend to be worse off financially than people who do.

+100! In Europe, they've limited interchange fees to a reasonable maximum. Banks can still make money, but don't offer crazy credit card rewards to the rich. I was sad to not get the rewards I was used to in the US, but happy that it was the greater good for society.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#334

Post by rblatz »

JAlexoid wrote: post #278
reaperducer wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't say "Get 2% if you use cash instead of VISA". (Notice that nobody ever advertises that?) Because VISA doesn't allow it. I see this all the time. * At more than one bookstore, the dry cleaner, markets, my current and previous landlord, my accountant, and pretty much every gas station since the 1990's. * Pre-quarantine. Now I don't see anything.

There are cases, where the person you're interacting with isn't likely to be audited or doesn't have a direct contract with the payment processor. Gas stations I find weird, in general. How did they get that exception?

It’s really only one chain I see doing that, and I’ve never bought gas from them and never will. The first time I lied in and they told me they were charging more for card I left.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#335

Post by dingaling »

TylerE wrote: post #176
notyourwork wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people didn't spend money they don't have the problem you describe dissolves. No one has to use credit cards and being financially literate is an individual responsibility.

The actually financially literate know how much more buyer protection you get with a CC than with any other form of payment.

And why is that? It's a beautiful example of regulatory capture that led to credit cards gaining advantage over other payment methods.

Such protections should either be scrapped or extended to cover all methods.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#336

Post by Symbiote »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #327
ballenf wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is still way more cash-based and you see less consolidation of businesses into large chains than in the US. I'm not sure I buy "drowning in the same costs". I think there's something more akin to a prisoner's dilemma here.

Germany is cash-based because of consumer behavior, not because costs are somehow lower. With corona, e-Commerce and services like SumUp more widespread Germany will inevitably catch up with other countries.

In Denmark, the majority of shops have little signs "Due to Covid-19, please pay by card or phone" or sometime "Due to Covid-19, cash is not accepted".

On a recent trip to Germany, I didn't see a single such sign.

Germany is changing gradually, perhaps due to the EU's limits on the fees Visa and MasterCard can change, but Covid-19 doesn't seem to have much effect.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#337

Post by dingaling »

DevKoala wrote: post #268
matthewdgreen wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just described a scenario in which you were systematically bilked for at least a year —- paying full retail prices, which presumably paid for full transaction fees, which in turn did not pay you any rewards —- so you could graduate to the privilege of being allowed to purchase a consumer line of credit that reduced the level of punishment to something merely appropriate. There are relatively few businesses in the…

It was a painful year that taught me a lesson. Looking at how fiscally responsible I have become, I really have no complains.

It's not financial responsibility or learning lessons, it's the fact that you consider earning cashback to be a reward for the ordeal you endured.

By participating in the cashback scheme you're putting more people through that ordeal by means of higher fees.

The only way to win is not to play.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#338

Post by kzrdude »

lillecarl wrote: post #131
PeterisP wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Card != CC. The point is that in EU there's less motivation to use credit cards than in USA because the situation is better for payment cards that are not credit cards. If you refer to Sweden, I believe that the split there is that something like 40% of the cards are credit cards, and the majority are not.

As a Swede, I thought the CC number would be lower. Most people my age never had a credit card. I do have a Visa DC and a MC CC for redundancy if my bank is down, most people I know doesn't even get why.

I have a DC and cc from the same bank.. not sure if it gives much of any redundancy, but it was the best deal on a cc I could find.

Re: Forget Google, time to end the Visa-MasterCard duopoly

#339

Post by lotsofpulp »

crazygringo wrote: post #211
koheripbal wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a little different. They offer discounts of 5% because they then don't report the income and don't pay taxes. The CC companies are only taking 2.5%-3.2%. If they're offering a 5% discount for cash - it's almost certainly tax evasion.

You're forgetting the percentages are on top of a ~$0.30 flat fee (though obviously this varies). So if you buy a $2 Coke, it's not a $0.054 fee (2.7%), it's $0.354 (or a whopping 17.7%). Maybe my dentist evades a few taxes, I dunno. But people buy cheap things at the bodega, so it probably is closer to the actual fees.

If the merchant doesn't offer the same cash discount for debit cards, then it's tax evasion. Debit card fees are a few cents, and the only reason to offer a big discount for cash, but not debit cards, is to not have the transaction on paper and hence evade taxes.
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