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Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

economist.com

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Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#41

This is the best, and in my opinion, only use case for Ethereum

No. Not even remotely close.

Both Bitcoin, and Ethereum have both proven that they are unsuitable for payments. Both with their demonstrably slow, expensive and unscalable layer 1 and their ducktaped contraptions of their non standard layer 2 solutions.

I can only see a few cryptocurrencies that are suitable for the payments use-case which the ones considered for this are part of the ISO 20020 standard.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#42
The only thing I don't want to happen is for the duopoly to be broken up into a billion different little fiefdoms each with their own unregulated space. One of the reasons credit cards are so good is because there's a fuckton of regulations built into the legislation behind them in order to give an individual consumer a fighting chance against the financial industry.

All these fintech companies wanting ACH access to my bank account? If a transaction gets fucked up (i.e. someone puts the decimal in the wrong place) it's my immediate and hard to fix problem. I have to deal with my bank's bureaucracy and their goodwill. In the meantime I have no access to my money. If someone fucks up the same using my credit card number it's one call and the company takes care of it and because it's in arrears I still have all my cash.

Nope. It'll be a cold day in hell before I give any fintech get direct access to my checking account for payments.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#43
In Brazil many stores are dropping credit card and allowing only PIX (instant debit transfer) cause it's cheaper for business (0,22% avg transaction fee vs 1%-2% of credit cards - src (pt-only) https://g1.globo.com/economia/pme/noticia/2022/03/23/pix-e-m...).

The President of Brazilian Central Bank recently said that "credit cards will soon cease to exist" src (pt only) https://www.poder360.com.br/economia/campos-neto-diz-que-car...

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#44

https://www.moderntreasury.com/learn/what-is-fednow > FedNow is an instant payment service for both individuals and businesses. Once launched, the initial transaction limit will be $25,000. This means that FedNow be more useful for small businesses and retail payment needs until it is widely adopted and the transaction limit grows. > In early 2022, the Federal Reserve released pricing and fee details for their real-t…

> Merchants can pass the CC surcharge through Can they? I was under the impression (unverified) that they are under contract to provide the same prices for CC customers as they do for cash or debit card.

It’s complex, but I believe Visa and MC voluntarily gave up their anti-steering requirements, while Amex fought the legal challenge against them and won[0].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_v._American_Express_Co%...

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#45

Does anyone sincerely believe FedNow will gain traction for consumer payments? The fees don’t seem particularly cheap (at least compared to something like Solana Pay), and the FedNow website does not inspire confidence.

I don’t see the value add from the sender side.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#46
post #6

1.4 billion people in China use WeChat to pay for everything. They don't even bother with credit cards.

Fortunately, phones never get lost. Or broken. Or stolen. Or discharge. Or malfunction. Or lock people out for no good reason. I can put a $100 bill through the washing machine and it's still perfectly usable. When I can do that with a phone, maybe I'll switch. I ran a credit card through the washer and dryer last month, and even though it got bent, and the stripe doesn't work anymore, the chip does. And the numbers…

I mean, you can always log into that WeChat account from another device... your WeChat username and password are maybe a bit more secure than all those numbers printed ostentatiously on your card, but are they really that different?

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#47
post #28

https://www.moderntreasury.com/learn/what-is-fednow > FedNow is an instant payment service for both individuals and businesses. Once launched, the initial transaction limit will be $25,000. This means that FedNow be more useful for small businesses and retail payment needs until it is widely adopted and the transaction limit grows. > In early 2022, the Federal Reserve released pricing and fee details for their real-t…

>Merchants can pass the CC surcharge through Unless things have changed in the last 20ish years, if you accept credit cards you’re not allowed to charge different prices for CC vs non-CC payments (although there are apparently some carve-outs for gas stations).

Things indeed changed, in most US states, in 2013[0].

[0] https://smartpay.gsa.gov/content/surcharges

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#48

This is the best, and in my opinion, only use case for Ethereum

Micropayments will be the killer app for crypto imo, once the $0.30 minimum transaction fee by the gatekeepers goes away a whole new universe of business models and revenue streams opens up. You can literally stream money if you want to. Lightning Network is one way to do that right now and the UX is getting pretty good too.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#49
Fraud protection of credit cards is the root of modern e-commerce. In some ways, Visa and Mastercard are the privatized court systems of the internet.

If I end up on a random, self-hosted ecommerce site and decide to make a purchase - what guarantee do I have that the item will show up or be as-described? If I bought something through a bank transfer, reversing that purchase would be incredibly difficult. And, suing a merchant is prohibitively slow, expensive, and arduous.

Also, modern B2C SaaS is built on credit card subscriptions. The ability for a merchant to pull payments on a recurring basis from a credit card requires an incredible amount of trust. If consumers had to push payment every month or year to continue subscriptions (instead of having it automatically debited), then churn rates would skyrocket and modern SaaS multiples would crash - taking company valuations with it.

So, I'm sure online merchants are happy to keep paying their ~3% fees as long as sales continue. Nobody wants to go back to "Cash on Delivery", and nobody wants to hire workers to knock on doors asking for bills to be paid.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#50

https://www.moderntreasury.com/learn/what-is-fednow > FedNow is an instant payment service for both individuals and businesses. Once launched, the initial transaction limit will be $25,000. This means that FedNow be more useful for small businesses and retail payment needs until it is widely adopted and the transaction limit grows. > In early 2022, the Federal Reserve released pricing and fee details for their real-t…

> Merchants can pass the CC surcharge through Can they? I was under the impression (unverified) that they are under contract to provide the same prices for CC customers as they do for cash or debit card.

Gas stations in California certainly have different prices for CC vs cash, but they have to show both prices I believe. If you just charge extra for credit cards, that's a surcharge and falls under different rules.

I think you can also advertise the credit card price and offer a cash discount.

Debit cards still have transaction fees, though lower ones I believe, so they usually get the same price as credit cards, but none of the benefits like points.

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