I don't see how any activity here helps an alternative to cash for payments. I'm not even fussed about anonymity here: visa/mastercard seem to provide a nationalizable service at an extremely poor quality and cost. We really deserve much better as both payers and payees.
Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
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Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#22Consolidation is bad, and big megacorps effectively break the market dynamic that fosters healthy competition, innovation, and reduces the cost of goods/services. I am happy to see acquisitions by megacorps blocked in general. But really we need a revision of antitrust law for the modern era, and we need it to be enforced.
>But really we need a revision of antitrust law for the modern era, and we need it to be enforced.
What revisions would you like to see? The underlying activities that make up the behavior we call "antitrust" haven't really changed.
I'd say the solution is much more about muscular enforcement than revising the law.
That said, there may be something I'm missing here.
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#23"Plaid has become the leading financial data aggregation company in the United States. Plaid is planning to leverage its connections to build a bank-linked payments network that would compete with Visa. Plaid’s money movement platform would allow consumers to pay merchants directly from their bank accounts using bank credentials rather than a debit card. Plaid’s established connections and technology uniquely positio…
It is quite a fascinating scenario. Apple and Google wallet are integrated into the credit card processing infrastructure. So they don't compete with Visa, their payments still go over Visa's rails. Plaid's killer feature has always been their private access to APIs that the banks won't give to anyone else. It's essentially like they're using modern web APIs while everyone else is using snail mail (i.e. ACH, bank tra…
Paypal has my banking details and can use those or credit/debit card to complete my payments. They always prefer to use bank because of no fees with cc/debit as backup. Google could do the same. ACH is really creaky and old.
We need something like UPI (india) or Wechat (china) in the US. Zelle is a poor substitute.
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is quite a fascinating scenario. Apple and Google wallet are integrated into the credit card processing infrastructure. So they don't compete with Visa, their payments still go over Visa's rails. Plaid's killer feature has always been their private access to APIs that the banks won't give to anyone else. It's essentially like they're using modern web APIs while everyone else is using snail mail (i.e. ACH, bank tra…
I was under the impression that they didn’t have access to any APIs but that they simply took your credentials and scraped the bank webpage.
They do some of both.
When I link a Capital One account, I get an OAuth-style flow and the ability to select which accounts I share directly on the C1 website. The sites I use this on show up as "Linked Apps" in my security settings in C1.
Others use the credentials-based flow.
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#25I was struck by this bit: 'If Plaid remained free to develop its competing payment platform, then “Visa may be forced to accept lower margins or not have a competitive offering."' My understanding is that Plaid would/could charge significantly less (up to 50% less) than Visa currently does. And that's the value of competition . Not necessarily as a race to the bottom (as we've seen in the airline industry, but that's…
I'm curious to hear more about the airline race to the bottom you're talking about. I've been flying once or twice a year for the last 7 years or so, and it's all pretty much been the same except perhaps a lot more addons and bagging fees.
Were airlines very different in the past?
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#26I was struck by this bit: 'If Plaid remained free to develop its competing payment platform, then “Visa may be forced to accept lower margins or not have a competitive offering."' My understanding is that Plaid would/could charge significantly less (up to 50% less) than Visa currently does. And that's the value of competition . Not necessarily as a race to the bottom (as we've seen in the airline industry, but that's…
I'm curious to hear more about the airline race to the bottom you're talking about. I've been flying once or twice a year for the last 7 years or so, and it's all pretty much been the same except perhaps a lot more addons and bagging fees. Were airlines very different in the past?
> Were airlines very different in the past?
Yes, they were much more expensive, but used to provide more for free. There was a time they even had legroom.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-air...
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#27Why couldn't the Justice Department do this for TurboTax's acquisition of Credit Karma?
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#28Why couldn't the Justice Department do this for TurboTax's acquisition of Credit Karma?
because republicans love tax software lobbyists?
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/04/03/709656642/epis...
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious to hear more about the airline race to the bottom you're talking about. I've been flying once or twice a year for the last 7 years or so, and it's all pretty much been the same except perhaps a lot more addons and bagging fees. Were airlines very different in the past?
> Were airlines very different in the past? Yes, they were much more expensive, but used to provide more for free. There was a time they even had legroom. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-air...
Air travel has become so cheap you can pretty much subsidize 3-4 domestic trips a year with a good rewards credit card and flexible dates. I am not sure this is a net win for my personal happiness as I rarely take these trips for fun reasons.
Re: Justice Department Sues to Block Visa's Proposed Acquisition of Plaid
#30I was struck by this bit: 'If Plaid remained free to develop its competing payment platform, then “Visa may be forced to accept lower margins or not have a competitive offering."' My understanding is that Plaid would/could charge significantly less (up to 50% less) than Visa currently does. And that's the value of competition . Not necessarily as a race to the bottom (as we've seen in the airline industry, but that's…
I'm curious to hear more about the airline race to the bottom you're talking about. I've been flying once or twice a year for the last 7 years or so, and it's all pretty much been the same except perhaps a lot more addons and bagging fees. Were airlines very different in the past?
If you do an internet search for “price wars us airlines” you will find some good info from about 25 years ago about this.