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Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

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Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#231
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a flat fee of 0.000025 and takes about a second for payments to go through on current gen blockchain L1s, many of which have retail Point of Sale systems.

You are failing to price in counter-party risk, exchange rate risk, and myriad other risks. Not to mention the cost of having a whole separate point of sale for a currency nobody has - or the fees for converting it back into a currency you can pay your suppliers and taxes with. Or the cost associated with reporting. You can pay a very similar flat 1/3 of a cent fee for an instant FedNow payment with none of those ris…

Cash, bank transfers, etc don't price in counter-party risk either. The only thing that does is Visa, and that's a layer on top of your existing statutory rights. Agreed re: fiat onramp/offramp.

0.3c is still far in excess of 0.0025c but maybe that won't matter.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK and I have had (still have) rewards on MC, Visa and Amex. This was the case when we were still in the EU as well.

Amex doesn't count - they run their own system end to end and charge retailers stupidly high fees. That's why most retailers don't take them. As for rewards on MC and Visa, which card are you on? In my experience, either the rewards are very small, or they are for specific retailers only, where the Bank has done a deal directly with the merchant. Occasionally they are a loss leader for the bank, working on the princi…

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/credit-cards/best-credit-card...

If you are in the US and aren't getting atleast 2 to 5 percent back on all your credit card transactions, you have a bad mix of credit cards

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent provided you a link explaining how this changed 10 years ago. You are unequivocally allowed in the United States to pass along credit card surcharges in all but two states. It's permitted by law, and it's permitted by merchant agreements! If you don't believe parent, and you don't believe me, I hope you believe Visa's own FAQ. > Q. Can I add a surcharge to card transactions? > As a result of a legal settlement…

Hmm, I think we are talking past each other. It isn't allowed without notice to MC/Visa, the cap is ~4% of the total, IIRC (which is usually far less than what I remember seeing when I last reported it a few years ago), and they require advance notice to the customer (before consumption) along with a line-item on the receipt. Just because it is legal, doesn't mean they are doing it right -- and in my limited experien…

They’re doing all of the above correctly, it’s placarded, and it’s obvious that since it’s all done similarly that there’s groups detailing how to do it.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is usually against the card-processing agreement. If you want to have fun, you can report them to Visa/MC and watch that go away within a few days.

Back in 2005, I bought a car in India. I was trying to pay a part of the purchase price using my credit card. My auto dealer wanted me to add a surcharge. When I called up my card company and complained about this, i was asked to pay the surcharge by my card issuer's call center employee :-(

The parent is likely referring to AMEX cards, which is the only issuer that enforces it as a global policy.

And hence why in developing countries only luxury and ultra-luxury establishments accept AMEX cards.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a sticker from a self checkout at a large supermarket (Føtex): https://imgur.com/a/w9sg1ey It says (roughly) "Payment cards without fee: All Danish and foreign debit cards" "Payment cards with fee: 0.9375% Danish issued; 1.75% foreign issued."

Wow, so that's even worse. Then you can only avoid this fee using ATM cards or cash.

Very few people pay the fee, most people pay with a debit card or cash.

People trying to get air miles, cashback or similar have to pay the cost of that.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those not understanding this comment, think about microtransactions. Who "subsidizes"? The people that can spend a lot but are also addicted. Connection? People that spend a lot on credit cards and gather late fees but not enough to ruin their credit or lose their card. You know who banks love? That person who has 5 overdraft fees on their checking account per month while maintaining a healthy balance in their sa…

Yes, of course there's more nuance than "fuck the poor". I almost never attribute malice to any actor -- the structural effects of systems are mostly organically evolved over time, nobody woke up one morning and designed the system to fuck over anybody in particular, just to make money. I'm basing my view on the classic Boston Fed paper https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/public-policy-discuss... . I don't keep up…

In my experience credit score isn't based on how much money you transact/owe, but how well you manage whatever debt you have.

I.e. I have two 2% cashback credit cards even though I make <$30k/yr.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems crazy not to, just because of the risk of tapping a debit card that gets cloned. I only use a debit card to (occasionally) draw cash.

Debit cards are 48% of all payments in the UK, and credit cards 8%. Cash is 15%, the rest are various types of bank transfer. Note this is all transactions, online and in-person, including things like subscription renewals. (How can a debit card be cloned, anyway? I'm not aware of any case of this, only a possible problem in the USA where data is 'cloned' onto a magstripe card.) https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/fi…

Accordingly to ukfinance.org[0] 13% of card transactions are CC and the rest are debit. I'm surprised it's that high for CC, but still, I think it's reasonable to say a lot of people use them.

Er yes, you're right about debit card cloning I think. I'll retract that one :) However if purchase something that doesn't work your CC company is jointly liable (crazily enough) and if your card details leak you have protection against fake purchases. Neither is the case for debit card use.

[0] https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/data-and-research/data/card-spe...

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there some abusers of the exemption out there? I kinda like smaller orgs getting a small leg up against bigger ones. Discourages excessive consolidation. It’s like an anti-oligopoly provision.

Before Durbin there used to be a lot of banks that offered points-earning debit cards. After Durbin, for many years SunTrust had a debit card that earned Delta miles. I think that's since moved to Truist. [1] I guess it depends on what you mean by 'abuse.' Is Truist abusing non-Durbin status by giving out points for PIN debit transactions? Or are all the other non-Durbin banks who give back nothing abusing the exempt…

From what I can tell, the exempt interchange fees were unregulated. So don’t know if they went out of control or not.

But even Durbin wasn’t perfect: before many cards would charge more of a percentage model, but after Durbin, raised them per swipe fee to the max. Which can be unfortunate for small purchases.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#239
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect fednow is why visa and MC are moving now to reduce fees. I can’t wait.

It almost certainly isn't. Nobody's taking FedNow at point of sale.

Nobody is doing anything with FedNow yet because it's not out. But if it works it will grow, just like in the EU where they have similar things and they're used.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, so that's even worse. Then you can only avoid this fee using ATM cards or cash.

Very few people pay the fee, most people pay with a debit card or cash. People trying to get air miles, cashback or similar have to pay the cost of that.

Visa electron/maestro are they debit cards now? Back in the day they were only for ATMs and very few businesses.

Don't most people have the normal visa/mc debit cards there?

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