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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

#361

Post by dx034 »

neil_s wrote: post #333
gruez wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Also, with interchange fees at 0.3% and total card fees <1% for many shops, it's actually cheaper for sellers to accept cards than cash.

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

#362

Post by dx034 »

Symbiote wrote: post #336
ivan_gammel wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Germany has seen a huge shift over the past months. Before that, paying by card for small ticket items such as in bakerys was frowned upon (or just not possible), now it's used by the majority in some areas.

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

#363

Post by imtringued »

xnyan wrote: post #168
simias wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying by card is common, paying using a Credit Card not necessarily. I'm French and I'm semi-ashamed to admit that when at a store abroad the clerk asked me "debit or credit?" for payment I had to ask him to explain to me what this quaint exotic incantation meant. When I finally understood how that system worked I also finally understood this weird trope in American movies where a character has a half a dozen credit…

Counterpoint, my partner got very sick and I burned my savings then borrowed money from every source I could, including credit cards. I knew I was accepting awful terms, but they gave me money and that’s what I needed at that moment and it was the only way I could get it. I’m not asking for pity, I knew what I agreed to and I’ll pay it but sometimes high interest revolving credit (credit cards ) only choice you have.

As long as it's not a pay day loan everything is fine. If you need liquidity then credit cards are a perfectly sane option. What I never understood though is why you would use a credit card when you don't need to borrow money, which is how most people use them.

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

#364

Post by jobigoud »

e9 wrote: post #106
alt_f4 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not though. No one is forcing you or anyone else to sign up for credit cards - it's a choice, unlike taxation.

you can't rent a car without credit card, they won't accept debit card or even debit VISA/MASTERCARD, it has to be full on credit card

I don't know anyone personally that owns a "credit" card. Virtually nobody uses them here in France and I think in the rest of Europe, it's always debit card. Never had an issue with renting cars.

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

#365

Post by tappio »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #342
tappio wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not concentrated to phone. -Direct bank payments use your bank id. You can have bank id stored in the phone, but you can also use a personal keychain authenticator -Klarna, Collector, etc use your social security number as the primary identification method -Mobile payments like Swish and mobile pay use your mobile number, so it is linked to your phone subscription, not your phone. Of course you still need t…

Yes but you need your phone on you to pay at the shop right ? So no batterie, money ? No network, no money ? Phone stolen, no money ? Phone broken, no money ? What if I don't want to have a spying hardware on me at all time ?

Hmm well, fair point. The society is moving also away from cash and many places don't accept it anymore. You are left with credit card... Which is also a spying device. So no payments without data collection for you!

I don't think that is essentially a bad thing. Forcing a digital signature for every transaction makes criminal activity difficult. Modern AML works much better because there is always a digital fingerprint for every transaction.

But I think that these are two distinct issues? Some crypto -things could somewhere in the future solve the privacy issue... But no society wants that, because real privacy makes criminal activity and money laundering possible. But that has nothing to do with credit card duopoly?

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

#366

Post by shuringai »

m12k wrote: post #350

The experience of receiving credit card payments for a SaaS subscription sucks badly, even if you disregard the inflated payment processing fee. Banks can allow the charge to happen the first five months, then on the sixth charge, randomly turn on a penny and reject the charge with a completely opaque do_not_honor code, which probably translates to 'our fraud detection algorithm felt extra paranoid today'. There's a…

the ideal system you described is called bitcoin

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

#367

Post by philwelch »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #316
ezconnect wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you are a criminal if your business is dealing with large amount of cash everyday. That’s how credit card got the market share. Companies make the law so you will use their system. They dont profit if you use cash whywould they allow you to do that.

What are you referring to here? There are plenty of cash only businesses in my city and the owners aren't being thrown in jail for it.

I’m sure it varies but the US has a bunch of annoying regulations meant to curb money laundering. For instance, if you deposit $10,000 or more at the bank, you are required to fill out annoying paperwork to prove you aren’t laundering money. If you don’t want to fill out annoying paperwork so you only deposit $9,000 at a time, that is literally a federal felony.

Maybe your city has a “safety of crowds” thing going on but when cash only businesses start going scarce, I bet the remaining holdouts start getting more and more scrutiny.

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

#368

Post by ipsum2 »

dx034 wrote: post #361
neil_s wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+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.

Also, with interchange fees at 0.3% and total card fees <1% for many shops, it's actually cheaper for sellers to accept cards than cash.

How do you figure? Is it from counterfeit money, or cost to transport the cash?

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

#369

Post by philwelch »

zymhan wrote: post #323
ezconnect wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US you are a criminal if your business is dealing with large amount of cash everyday. That’s how credit card got the market share. Companies make the law so you will use their system. They dont profit if you use cash whywould they allow you to do that.

It's more like folks don't want to get robbed by keeping everything in cash, and so they use banks.

That’s another factor for sure. I’m not sure if the timing lines up—I remember credit cards being more and more broadly accepted over time compared to cash even after crime rates in the US dropped—but the US still has pretty high crime rates for a developed country.

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

#370

Post by Cu3PO42 »

dathinab wrote: post #47
tiffanyh wrote: post #20

I am reading so much incorrect information in this thread it’s maddening. The card network (Visa, Mastercard, etc) do NOT make money on Interchange. It’s hard to have a healthy dialogue on this topic if folks don’t understand the basics of how the card networks generate revenue. Below is a decent primer. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032615/how-mas...

True, also in many EU countries credit cards do matter much less. For example in Germany card payment is normally done with EC cards (girocard,vpay,etc), including NFC based payment. For long term recurring payments SEPA is common, for one time payments simple bank transactions over online banking. This includes online payment for services like Amazon. Oh an not to large local payments (e.g. restaurant) are also very…

Hi, fellow German here. I know that "EC card" means "girocard" in the common vernacular, but if we're talking about payment systems, I think it's important to be correct.

These cards used to be called EC card, however MasterCard now has all the rights to the EC brand. In fact debit MasterCards with EC branding are starting to pop up now.

You either want to speak of "girocard" which is our own payment network or "debit cards", which includes the likes of Maestro V-Pay, but also some Visa and MasterCards. In the same sense, you don't need a credit card for most online shops, you just need a Visa/MC (some will only take credit, but most will take debit).

And as for PayPal: they don't use your "EC card" either. PayPal offers to process the charge by way of direct debit, which is (now) a SEPA process and totally unrelated to any debit or credit card you may have. It just so happens that girocards list your SEPA account info.

/rant. Sorry, this is just one of those things that gets me.

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