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Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

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Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#31

Post by lotsofpulp »

joezydeco wrote: post #26
lotsofpulp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has long been up to the merchant to display different prices for credit cards and non credit card payments. No one is stopping them.

Although at lot of places ban the display of higher prices for credit use. Which discourages most customers, so they settle for showing a single price and skipping the discussion of a discount. Because why would you offer people a way to pay less?

I do not know of any place like that in the US, and would run afoul of this SC ruling I think:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_Hair_Design_v._Sch...

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#32

Post by Gerito »

disadvantage wrote: post #9
humanistbot wrote: post #6

Where do you think that 1-1.5% cashback rewards on your credit card come from? It's your cut of their cut.

Cashback rewards are largely worthless and so small as to be negligible IMHO. I can understand the extreme-couponing aspect for people who budget down to the penny, but for me it's basically useless.

I always thought that I want to switch to a credit card for miles.

I researched it and I believe this is just a very weird mix of USA and people spending just a lot of money.

Like I can imagine that if you still don't know what a automatic bank wire.is, you might just put everything on a credit card like utility etc.

Or there are people who are living their lives in hotels like consultant who use their cc to pay for company expenses and get rebursed later.

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#33

Post by TheCoelacanth »

humanistbot wrote: post #19
toomuchtodo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to pay 3% more for that privilege (as a transaction surcharge), I think that’s fine, but others should be able to opt out of the rake when there are suitable instant payment alternatives (which there are in 54 countries, with the US getting instant payments next year). Pushing financial specific ISO messages on a bus should cost cents, not percentages, per transaction (US instant payments will cost $0.045…

Sure. I wasn't saying anything about the price. I was just responding to the statement that the product is not good. The product is great. The price may not be worth it. But lets not pretend like Visa/MC is a substandard product.

The security, at least in the US, is distinctly substandard.

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#34

Post by dr_kiszonka »

jasode wrote: post #15

>Visa is charging 2% for every transaction? [...] Do they provide anything in return? VISA and its member banks + payments processors/gateways provide the financial network to give sellers (like you) the ability to accept VISA credit cards. To put the "financial network" into more concrete terms, here are some open job listings to program the mainframes in San Francisco that VISA runs to process billions of transacti…

They actually have some interesting positions like this one at Visa Research: https://usa.visa.com/careers/job-details.jobid.7439998204732...

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#35

Post by humanistbot »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #29
humanistbot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I wasn't saying anything about the price. I was just responding to the statement that the product is not good. The product is great. The price may not be worth it. But lets not pretend like Visa/MC is a substandard product.

How is the product great? It's exactly the same as any other such service. If I didn't look and randomly picked a cc from my wallet I wouldn't even know which card I paid with until I look at the bill. The fact that Visa and Mastercard have these great margins is entirely down to their duopoly. In a competitive market the fees would be massively lower because it's not actually that expensive running the network. 2%,…

I don't know why people think I'm interested in talking about the fees. I'm responding to the quote that "Like most monopolies the quality and price of service is not actually that good." The price may be a ripoff, but the quality of the service is good. The reason you can pick a random CC from your wallet without thinking and it just works is because of the oligopoly. Credit cards 'just work' virtually everywhere, and that is a huge part of what it means for a payment system to be high-quality.

What other payment system currently offers the same speed, ubiquity, reliability, and fraud protection to consumers? If I'm going to travel the world, I'm going to rely on Visa/Mastercard for a reason.

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#36

Post by ypzhang2 »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #29
humanistbot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I wasn't saying anything about the price. I was just responding to the statement that the product is not good. The product is great. The price may not be worth it. But lets not pretend like Visa/MC is a substandard product.

How is the product great? It's exactly the same as any other such service. If I didn't look and randomly picked a cc from my wallet I wouldn't even know which card I paid with until I look at the bill. The fact that Visa and Mastercard have these great margins is entirely down to their duopoly. In a competitive market the fees would be massively lower because it's not actually that expensive running the network. 2%,…

It’s not a duopoly? Amex exists and so does discover. Visa and Mastercard may be large but certainly not the only game in town

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#37

Post by dehrmann »

wmf wrote: post #4

Multiple companies take a cut of each credit card transaction: the acquiring bank, the payment processor (e.g. Stripe), the network (Visa/MC/Amex), maybe the issuing bank. The fees add up to 2-3%.

It's worth mentioning cash transactions aren't free, either. There's a higher likelihood of employee theft, giving the wrong change, accepting counterfeit bills, and cost of transporting cash to and from the bank.

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#38

Post by sschueller »

Visa has managed to get banks in Switzerland to give up direct debit cards in favor of visa debit cards. The cards have very high fees for vendors vs the almost non existing fees previously. Worst part is that if a business wants to accept regular visa credit cards that have "normal" fees they have to accept these new debit cards. The consumer has no clue and just pays with what is easiest which ends up being the visa debit cards.

Re: Is Visa taking 2% out of all my transactions?

#40

Post by blibble »

sschueller wrote: post #39
blibble wrote: post #27

still cheaper than physically handling cash

How so? No charge backs, no fraudulent transactions, no paperwork. You have the money right then and don't have to wait for some transfer a few days later.

never handled cash in a business?

  - employee mistakes
  - dealing with the float: counting it out, counting it back in
  - having to store it securely
  - having to transport it securely
  - paying to pay it in at the bank (cash deposits are not free)
  - increases risk of getting robbed
  - actually getting robbed and having it all gone
2% is a bargain
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