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Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

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Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#681

Post by dndvr »

physicsguy wrote: post #447
lotsofpulp wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instant, cost-free transfers between any two accounts, completed faster than you can lift your finger off your smartphone. This is available to most people in the US via Zelle. I have been using it for nearly 10 years I think. https://www.zellepay.com/get-started Ideally, the federal government would have already made it a utility available to all, but for now the functionality is there for those who can get a bank…

To give you the comparable situation - in the UK we have two numbers associated with every bank account (historically one identified the branch of the bank the account was held with, and the other identified the account, but nowadays there’s no real link between a branch anymore). For me to send money to another person or company’s bank account, I just those two numbers, and I can send up to £25k and it will be in th…

This network/system is called Faster Payments https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/payment-systems/faster-pa...

You may also be interested in Paym which uses mobile numbers https://paym.co.uk/

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#682

Post by dndvr »

andrewaylett wrote: post #585
mbesto wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like Zelle, but this is not comparable to the system I've used in the UK. - Limits how much you can send - Identity is based on email or phone number (what?!) that then needs to be managed/tied to the bank account. If you switch banks or whatever, you need to re-active with the new bank. - For awhile, I could only associated one email with one account in Chase (despite having 4 checking accounts for business, etc.)…

The UK equivalent to Zelle isn't BACS/Faster Payments, but https://paym.co.uk/ As I understand things, the US equivalent to BACS would be ACH. Which is also sort code and account number, but allows pulling money without further authorisation as well as pushing money. Obviously doing that when you're not supposed to would be very illegal, but unfortunately that's not enough to stop everyone.

is pulling via ACH basically a direct debit in UK terms?

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#684

Post by andrewaylett »

dndvr wrote: post #682
andrewaylett wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK equivalent to Zelle isn't BACS/Faster Payments, but https://paym.co.uk/ As I understand things, the US equivalent to BACS would be ACH. Which is also sort code and account number, but allows pulling money without further authorisation as well as pushing money. Obviously doing that when you're not supposed to would be very illegal, but unfortunately that's not enough to stop everyone.

is pulling via ACH basically a direct debit in UK terms?

Minus all the safety precautions that make DD generally safe to use.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#685

Post by gsibble »

CharlesW wrote: post #620
gsibble wrote: post #561

I actually designed software that could integrate with existing POS systems (the really hard part) that allowed for interchange free commerce using a card or Apple Pay integration. I showed it to an investor. His only response was, "This is a very fast way to end up dead." You don't fuck with monopolies that bring in hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in profit a year. People get killed for way less. On a s…

> You don't fuck with monopolies that bring in hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in profit a year. People get killed for way less. He didn't mean that a corporation would literally kill you, because that comes with the possibility of unimaginable risk. He meant that they had effectively-infinite resources to fight you for decades with an army of lawyers and politicians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert…

No, he made it very clear they would kill me.

I've had my life credibly threatened before over business in big deals. It comes with the territory and isn't as uncommon or unbelievable as people think.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#686

Post by gsibble »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #677
CharlesW wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't fuck with monopolies that bring in hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in profit a year. People get killed for way less. He didn't mean that a corporation would literally kill you, because that comes with the possibility of unimaginable risk. He meant that they had effectively-infinite resources to fight you for decades with an army of lawyers and politicians. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert…

There is this naive modern believe that killing people is something exceptional and difficult. It's not. 1 out of 2 homicide is unsolved in the US: https://www.statista.com/statistics/194213/crime-clearance-r... As for straight murder, it's the cause of death of 5 persons out of 100000 ( https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... ). Diabetes is 20/100000 in comparison ( https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/p…

Correct. Not to mention when my life was credibly threatened in another business situation, they described in detail several other murders they had gotten away with and how easy it was. They made them all look like suicides and all were ruled suicides. Murder is just another part of big corporate business.

He also made it clear (and demonstrated) he had very high connections at the FBI to make sure he would never be investigated.

I wouldn't have believed it either until I experienced it first hand.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#687

Post by gsibble »

serial_dev wrote: post #582
gsibble wrote: post #561

I actually designed software that could integrate with existing POS systems (the really hard part) that allowed for interchange free commerce using a card or Apple Pay integration. I showed it to an investor. His only response was, "This is a very fast way to end up dead." You don't fuck with monopolies that bring in hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in profit a year. People get killed for way less. On a s…

When I read "fast way to end up dead", I naively though as a company , meaning that you have no chance of getting traction and breaking into the market... I am still actually wondering if this would get you killed or you would face simply an uphill battle in the market and never get traction. In a sense it is similar to the two party system in the US. I wonder if there isn't a viable third party still today because p…

In this case, he meant physically dead. A few years later, my life was threatened credibly by a billionaire I was doing business with and it opened my eyes that murder is just another part of corporate America (usually made to look like suicides).

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#688

Post by [deleted] »

googlryas wrote: post #590
dfxm12 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of this is that card only businesses de facto discriminate (not in an illegal way, of course) against people who don't have/can't get cards. Not being able to buy a cup of coffee from one particular coffee shop might not seem like a big deal, but it sends a signal as to who is/isn't wanted in the shop. Further, if it becomes a trend and all coffee shops go card only, spreading to other business like gr…

What's wrong with that? All sorts of things discriminate against certain buyers. Primarily the location, the signage, the prices, the languages the staff speak, etc. And, in fact, not everyone is comfortable using cash, so even cash-only locations discriminate against people who don't want to carry cash, or people who don't believe in cash and want to do business through bartering. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta…

[deleted]

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#689

Post by rchaud »

nradov wrote: post #624
dfxm12 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other side of this is that card only businesses de facto discriminate (not in an illegal way, of course) against people who don't have/can't get cards. Not being able to buy a cup of coffee from one particular coffee shop might not seem like a big deal, but it sends a signal as to who is/isn't wanted in the shop. Further, if it becomes a trend and all coffee shops go card only, spreading to other business like gr…

Who can't get a card? Anyone should be able to get a prepaid debit card, although it is a bit of extra hassle. Those work on the Visa / MasterCard networks, and are accepted by any business (except perhaps certain hotels and online services).

Cards require bank accounts, and bank accounts require home addresses. Not shelters, not PO boxes, not halfway houses. Home addresses. That takes out a large number of people who likely need banking services the most.

Re: Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?

#690

Post by nephanth »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #586
nephanth wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France, contactless has a legal limit of 50€. (It used to be 25€ before covid, but they tried to incentivize contactless to reduce well... contacts) There's also generally a limit over the volume and the amount of consecutive payments, so that if someone steals your card, they won't be able to spend huge sums with contactless. It is set by your bank though

Even when paying with a phone though? Here there is a similar limit with cards but with my phone it works (Samsung Pay). And I never have to enter a PIN either, I assume this is because I have to authenticate on the phone for every payment (biometric or separate PIN). But I haven't been to France since I got Samsung Pay so I haven't had the chance to try it out. Here in Spain it works with any amount. Well, up to a f…

I had simply assumed it would be the same, but after a bit of research, on the phone, the legal limit is way higher (300€). It does require a pin code above 50€ though
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