Now this is a "tech company" problem I wish the EU would tackle. Why do these American companies get to decide what I'm allowed to purchase?
Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
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Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#12China is a footnote in the article, but their story here is interesting. China's WTO accession commitments in 2001 agreed to open its financial services sector, including payment card services, to foreign companies, except they never did.
The US sued (presumably on behalf of VISA and MasterCard) and won in 2012: https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-...
MasterCard just started being full offered in 2024. VISA still has not. In the meantime, China built their own dominate offerings, essentially avoiding the duopoly.
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#13The credit card duopoly is another instance where the EU has done a good job with regulation, but everyone just takes it for granted until they’re reminded how much worse the rest of the world has it.
In the EU, card payment fees are capped at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. In the US, these interchange fees are about 2%.
US businesses pay over $100 billion annually in these fees to card networks. If the fees were capped like in the EU, 85% of that money would stay with the businesses rather than feed the duopoly.
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#14[deleted]
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#15The credit card duopoly is another instance where the EU has done a good job with regulation, but everyone just takes it for granted until they’re reminded how much worse the rest of the world has it. In the EU, card payment fees are capped at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. In the US, these interchange fees are about 2%. US businesses pay over $100 billion annually in these fees to card networks. If…
Is there information on EU vs US credit limits?
How do the account fees compare between EU and US?
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#16So what is the solution to this duopoly except for crypto?
I envision a third payment processor that isn't Visa or Mastercard and not even crypto.
It isn't Stripe or PayPal either, something completely different.
Thoughts?
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#17Brazil central bank introduced Pix a few years ago. It took over the country as the public basic infrastructure for money transfer. Totally free and instantaneous transactions between people and companies, available to all banks.
Then, just last week, the US presidency launched an investigation considering Pix an unfair trade practice against the US.
Actions like that may show the current direction of the US government is aligned on preserving status quo. But still, I wonder how impactful a public digital infrastructure for the dollar would be.
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#18This is an important topic. I wonder what it is that makes duopoly so prevalent in tech e.g. Apple vs Google for mobile, Apple vs Microsoft for desktop, Uber vs Lyft for ride sharing. As for the linked article, it reads too much like AI slop for me to be bothered to analyze any of its specific points. If it's not AI, someone please correct me.
Toothless competition law enforcement doesn't help it.
Not just toothless, but also focusing on the wrong thing. Our antitrust laws haven't kept up with tech. They are still largely focused on consumer harm, which doesn't apply well when huge tech companies can offer stuff for free at a loss to snuff out any potential competition.
Instead we need antitrust legislation to look at unfairly favoring one's own service, attack bundling, and prohibit exclusionary practices/blocking access to protocols (Private APIs, basically Apple).
To use Apple as an example, we could legally mandate they provide APIs for third parties to access iMessage, AirDrop, SharePlay, etc. on their OSes so that third parties can offer accessories and services that compete on the same playing field as Apple's own accessories and services. Without mandating that openness, there can be no competitors. I can't make a smartwatch for iPhones and have it able to compete with the Apple Watch, Apple just simply gatekeeps and won't allow it - that should not be legal. Likewise for wireless headphones - no one else can make a set of wireless earbuds that can do device switching on Apple devices to the same level as AirPods, because Apple is gate keeping with proprietary tech.
The non anti-trust aspect of it with tech is mostly network effects. For mobile, the more users, the more apps, the more valuable that platform gets, starts to incur high switching costs, devs neglect or ignore any potential new entry into the market because it's not profitable to build for it, and that momentum is very difficult to overcome without regulatory action.
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#19So what is the solution to this duopoly except for crypto? I envision a third payment processor that isn't Visa or Mastercard and not even crypto. It isn't Stripe or PayPal either, something completely different. Thoughts?
I hope Wero will spread rapidly in the EU. It is SEPA underneath.
Re: Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)
#20The fucked up thing is how they are enforcing archaic puritan ideals on the whole world. Acting as self appointed global censors. (Eg. not allowing adult games on Steam or Itch.io) The most confusing thing for me is why. I have read a few theories, but nothing convincing. What could be a strong enough motivator to do such a bizarre thing? Also we need governments to keep them in line. We cant have private corps actin…
Something to do with https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/prosecutin... ?
> In particular, the TVPA imposes criminal liability upon corporations that benefit financially from human trafficking in “reckless disregard” that their business ventures engaged in such exploitation.
Not that digitally generated tits and asses have anything to do with human trafficking. But for a payment provider, porn sites are risky because their upload filters can miss content that violates these laws..
Russia's exclusion from Visa/Mastercard means cards there are on the Chinese networks and Russia's internal one.. it'd be interesting if adult content providers adopt these, bur I guess that means working with a Russian financial institute, which risks embargo from the US.
Imagine that, your porn stars ending up on the US embargo list...
Meanwhile, on the topic of human trafficking, Trump is panicking about being in Epstein's files...