There's a huge piece of information missing from that article and much of the reporting of Amazon's decision Visa have put up UK-EU interchange fees (as post Brexit they're not covered by the cap) But it affects Amazon because when you buy something from Amazon UK, you're billed by Amazon Luxembourg and Amazon UK then fulfil Amazon's tax avoidance strategy is part of the reason the charge has increased for them. If t…
Is that the case for non-digital goods? When I look at my credit card statement, all the Amazon transactions go to Great Britain.
Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
351–360 of 534 posts
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#352Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally agree. All the major banks apart from Barclays and HSBC use Mastercard for credit
My HSBC credit card has always been Mastercard.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#354I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be higher than Amex - there's something going on behind the scenes here. I don't think this is the end of it either, it smells like a negotiation threat. Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards. Amex has always been fairly niche because it's not accepted everywhere. [1] https://www.statista.com/…
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many amex cards which don't have any fees, they even have a filter for them on their website [0] https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/credit-cards/all-cards/?i...
Amex is terrible card in EU. High fees, many places rejecting it, I see no real reason why to use Amex over Visa or Master/Maestro
> I see no real reason why to use Amex over Visa or Master/Maestro
Cashback/rewards, and it's accepted on Amazon in the UK after this year is a really good reason to use it over Visa at least. Maestro is non-existant in the UK. Maybe mastercard is a better choice, but I carry two cards _anyway_ , so one might as well be an Amex, and the second should be a mastercard?
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#356Has 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.
In Germany, we have our own debit card scheme called 'girocard' owned jointly by a group of German banks that has very low fees. Unfortunately, this card does not work for online payments, which has lead to PayPal being extremely popular. Other solutions, some national, some international exist as well, but have comparatively high fees. Amazon Germany allows users to pay via SEPA direct debit from any European bank a…
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
If anything, that's an argument in favour of the whole thing being government controlled -- it's clearly a natural monopoly with a large capital expenditure requirement and a comparatively minimal (as a percentage of transactions) ongoing charge required to continue to run it. I mean, it clearly doesn't cost Visa / MC any more to make a £/$/€45 000 payment than a £/$/€5 one – database writes are not cheaper or more e…
Brazil has gone that route with PIX [0]. It's a fund transfer system with realtime confirmation. Many e-commerce stores accept it besides debit/credit, they can confirm the payment almost instantaneously and they usually give discounts if you use PIX instead of debit/credit (3-10%). Also, paying at stores, clinics, doctors, etc.. all done with PIX nowadays. Very few people are carrying cash these days. Very few clini…
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does that mean they just need to set up a billing center in the UK?
And report profits in the UK then I presume.
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Australian practice seems fair though. If you force cash and credit card transactions to be the same price then the extra 0.5% is charged to everyone, and outside of extreme cases like this post there is little incentive for credit card operators to lower their fee.
Why is that only applied to credit card transactions, and not transactions by debit card (which banks also charge for) or for handling cash?
Re: Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
#360There's a huge piece of information missing from that article and much of the reporting of Amazon's decision Visa have put up UK-EU interchange fees (as post Brexit they're not covered by the cap) But it affects Amazon because when you buy something from Amazon UK, you're billed by Amazon Luxembourg and Amazon UK then fulfil Amazon's tax avoidance strategy is part of the reason the charge has increased for them. If t…