Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 534 posts

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#211

Post by gambiting »

lmm wrote: post #193
gambiting wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, when I use my debit card it just goes out of my main account, done, don't have to worry about it. On my credit card I'll have bigger purchases I made some time ago and I'm working towards paying them off - if I put all my monthly purchases there too, I'd lose track of how much of that I need to pay off monthly and how much I've got left on my main account. And yes, it can be easily worked out but I gues…

> And for purchases under £100, credit cards offer no additional protection whatsoever, so for my daily shopping I'd just be making my life more difficult for no reason. They offer better protection against fraudulent charges though? If your card gets skimmed it doesn't matter whether you were paying £5 or £5000.

I never understood this point - my debit card has been charged fraudulently couple of times, all it always took was a quick call to Barclays, 2 minutes on the phone with the agent and the charges were reversed and the card cancelled.

What exactly can a credit card do better than this?

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#212

Post by mjul »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #5

Has anyone successfully nationalised/regulated into sanity this business? It's 2021, buying stuff should involve neither precious metals nor weird faceless financial cooperatives owned by private banks.

There are also startups such as Swiipe [1] that replace debit card payments by direct app-initiated account-to-account transfer.

This is enabled by the payment service provider APIs as per the EU Payment Services Directive (PSD 2) and the EU Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) infrastructure that make these payments free and "instant".

[1] https://swiipe.com/en/

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#213

Post by refurb »

iampims wrote: post #115
ericd wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not necessarily predatory, so much as they take a couple percent of everything that flows through them. Also, they don't take the hit on chargebacks, the merchant does. Those two things cover purchase protection just fine without relying on people getting hit with high interest rates.

And merchant add 2% to their base price which amounts to everyone not using a credit card “subsidizing” the benefits to all credit card users.

No, it’s not like at some point merchants said “oh yeah, let’s add 2% to account for credit card processing fees”.

The appeal of credit cards is higher volume - more purchases because people can put it on credit, it’s more convenient, etc. That’s why you’ll see even roadside fruit stands offer credit card payments.

Plus stores are in competition with each other (to varying degrees). Some will choose to absorb the entire 2% or a part of it since, in their mind, it’s a net positive trade off.

It’s like saying a 5% increase in property taxes are just passed through as a rent increase. It all depends on the market. The right answer is something between 0-100% is passed through.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#214

Post by robjan »

danuker wrote: post #153
viktorcode wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it's a consequence of Brexit. In European economic area those fees are capped pretty low.

How so? Did leaving EU imply giving up laws already adopted while in the EU?

It did. In this case the EU interchange restriction of 0.3% has been revoked

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#216

Post by simonh »

dustinmoris wrote: post #190
input_sh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's why: two debit cards, one for receiving money, one for spending money. Automated payment from the 1st one to the 2nd one once a month with a fixed amount you expect to spend in a month. Nothing to pay off, you're spending your own money, can't be overcharged, can't go below zero, if someone leaks your spending card they can't touch the majority of your money, no scummy business practices. Never owned a credit…

> can't be overcharged, can't go below zero, ...and can't get a mortgage and buy a house because you have no credit score.

You don't have to have running shoes to be able to run. I haven't owned a credit card for 15 years and my credit score is just fine.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#217

Post by stuaxo »

tazjin wrote: post #180
mattowen_uk wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never owned a credit card, don't have the slightest wish to do so. Bizarrely, never owning a credit card will negatively impact your credit rating.

I don't think that's really true outside of the US.

No, it's true in the UK.

I had this issue, and had to get a credit card and buy stuff on it for a year... basically without using credit you may not have a credit rating.

I always lose my cards and have to get them replaced, so have been back on just a debit card for a few years now.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#219

Post by lmilcin »

pishpash wrote: post #198
lmilcin wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards. I worked in credit card payments (on acquiring side). Any market share advantage between Visa and Mastercard is very, very fragile. It is basically your choice which card to pull out for payment. It is also why Visa and Mastercard these are so alike almost in every aspect. When one does something, the othe…

I've understood Visa and Mastercard to share some kind of relationship but cannot find the source any more.

Yes, they are actually working together a lot. There is PCI (Payment Card Industry) and then there is EMV. There is probably more but the two have been important from my point of view.

The main motivation for this is to make payment technology transparent to the user (as in use any card anywhere, expect similar behavior, etc.) A lot of this is standardized so much that it is virtually the same for both.

And I know this, because it was my job to implement these standards. I calculated some 17 thousand pages of specifications in various forms.

Both Visa and Mastercard gain a lot form this because it is not a zero-sum game. Because of this cooperation people have been steadily increasing their use of credit card payments and this I think created a lot more revenue than they could have ever created for themselves by winning a cutthroat competition.

Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards

#220

Post by stuaxo »

c16 wrote: post #141
input_sh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's why: two debit cards, one for receiving money, one for spending money. Automated payment from the 1st one to the 2nd one once a month with a fixed amount you expect to spend in a month. Nothing to pay off, you're spending your own money, can't be overcharged, can't go below zero, if someone leaks your spending card they can't touch the majority of your money, no scummy business practices. Never owned a credit…

The flip side to this is using something like an Amex which offers insurance, points, business lounge access and much more. Set up the card with diret debit (much like your automated payments) and never spend above what you can afford. You now have perks, points, insurance, consumer protection and still zero worries.

It's pretty expensive to have an Amex card, I had one for a bit, but ended up not really using it so the £ they wanted seemed like a rip-off in the end.
Post reply on HN