This is what product market fit looks like; everyone is trashing various pieces of Zenobia, but it's still getting upvoted because we all want the solution.
Apparently not everyone: https://www.reddit.com/r/CreditCards/comments/1hxiusj/europe...
Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
51–60 of 278 posts
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
how is cash too expensive?? huh?
_Handling_ cash is expensive. I never thought of that until my SO started working in a shop. To and from the bank, with stacks of coins and notes.. and there's presumably much more than that for larger firms. In general I rely my statement on what merchants themselves are saying. Newspapers are writing interviews with merchants who (illegally) have stopped accepting cash, even though it's legal tender. "It's too expe…
> Newspapers are writing interviews with merchants who (illegally) have stopped accepting cash, even though it's legal tender.
That's legal. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm
Legal tender applies only to debt/creditor relationships.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#53I totally disagree with “We proposed merchants "split the difference" in fee savings with their customer, giving customers ~1% in at-checkout "cashback". But this is just a worse version of credit card rewards.”
As a shopper, if I know that a SMB is saving 1% or even 2% on merchant fees, I would gladly choose that option, even if I miss out on rewards for that purchase.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
How long have we been hearing that cryptocurrencies are going to save us from our existing payment systems?
I do not think most people are even slightly familiar with what transpired this year with regard to stablecoins. The biggest players that move money are going forward with it. This means Amazon, Walmart, and numerous other big players. They don't like paying credit card companies, and why should they. It's going to be a game changer.
I've never really understood this idea that banking should be free, as if it's ran on magical fairy dust and not computers that cost money, ran by people who need money themselves.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Secondly it costs the consumer nothing. The cost goes to the merchant. If anything the customer gets rewards. Just like tariffs, right? Visa/MC is a +1% income tax on most of the economy.
It isn't - using cards, with fees, is cheaper than cash. I realized that when shops started to refuse cash (even if cash is legal tender and they, by law, _have_ to accept cash). The argument? Cash is too expensive.
> even if cash is legal tender and they, by law, _have_ to accept cash
this is not true as it is not what "legal tender" means. Legal tender is something that the government must accept as payment, not private enterprise.
> Businesses don’t have to accept cash.[0]
> There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services.[1]
[0]: https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-servic...
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#56I totally disagree with “We proposed merchants "split the difference" in fee savings with their customer, giving customers ~1% in at-checkout "cashback". But this is just a worse version of credit card rewards.” As a shopper, if I know that a SMB is saving 1% or even 2% on merchant fees, I would gladly choose that option, even if I miss out on rewards for that purchase.
The thing is, Visa and MC are doing just fine(tm) on countries where their cut is limited by law to less than 1%. Everything else is just pure profit, no matter who runs it.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#57When you start at the wrong premise, you typically end up in the wrong place. The premise is that credit cards (visa / Mastercard) is broken. When actually it works really well. For starters it works everywhere. Online. IRL. In my home country, in foreign lands. Secondly it costs the consumer nothing. The cost goes to the merchant. If anything the customer gets rewards. Merchants might pay 3%, (and ultimately yes, th…
> For starters it works everywhere. Online. IRL. In my home country, in foreign lands.
Only if Visa/MC agree with the item being sold though.
Be careful to not get hobbies that some religious pressure group hates. Today sex, maybe tomorrow rock climbing or fixing your own motorcycle.
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cash handling isn't free! You have to pay someone's time to count + reconcile + deposit it, or If you're dealing at any volume, you'll pay an armored car service to collect it. There's inevitably "shrinkage", or else business processes (more time and more overhead) to avoid it. Cash is king for hiding transactions and avoiding taxes. If that's the situation then I won't say you don't deserve a cut, but for rules-foll…
> but for rules-following merchants taking cash isn't any cheaper than paying the credit card fees. That’s not true at all, particularly for large purchases. If I go to an electronics and check out with $5000 in electronics, there’s no way that handling cash incurs the same expense to the store as the 3% fee ($150). Maybe for nickel and dime purchases, but that’s rarely the case. Even a $50 dinner doesn’t cost the re…
This is a huge pile of uncosted assumptions.
If you take cash it means you have to hold it on site. To be insured you have to demonstrate secure handling for the insurer, which would include security systems and limiting the amount in the safe and register. Which means routine trips to the bank, which also incurs costs.
Like...that could all be true, but the rate merchants tried to ditch ever handling physical money rather suggests the fees were worth it (not to mention all the risk mitigation doesn't cover the increased danger to ones personal safety - walking $5000 to the bank is no fun at all).
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cash handling isn't free! You have to pay someone's time to count + reconcile + deposit it, or If you're dealing at any volume, you'll pay an armored car service to collect it. There's inevitably "shrinkage", or else business processes (more time and more overhead) to avoid it. Cash is king for hiding transactions and avoiding taxes. If that's the situation then I won't say you don't deserve a cut, but for rules-foll…
> but for rules-following merchants taking cash isn't any cheaper than paying the credit card fees. That’s not true at all, particularly for large purchases. If I go to an electronics and check out with $5000 in electronics, there’s no way that handling cash incurs the same expense to the store as the 3% fee ($150). Maybe for nickel and dime purchases, but that’s rarely the case. Even a $50 dinner doesn’t cost the re…
Business banking != consumer banking. The bank will charge ~$0.10-$0.50 for that $50 deposit + the wages of the person who goes to the bank to pay it in (minimum $7.25 per hour).
Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
They only use cards because credit cards can allow them to get sales from people who wouldn't have been able to buy the product through debit itself, but they can buy it from credit.., so they are okay with eating 1-2% of costs in the fact that sale might happen and the companies will get 0.5-1% of it to you back as rewards (hopefully) and so there is incentive to buy using credit card for rewards but they might also…
The argument doesn't hold - if cards were only about getting sales which they otherwise wouldn't get - and the part about "getting sales which they otherwise wouldn't get", is true enough - then there's no reason to refuse cash payments. That's additional sales, right? But the fact is that more and more shops refuse cash payments entirely. "Pay by card or go somewhere else".
I can't comment on this fact of more and more shops refusing for cash payments entirely as I personally have NEVER seen that?
Provide me an article or some proof to this fact for me to comment further as currently we are at an disagreement on this thing which I hope we can turn into meaningful discussion.