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Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

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Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#151

Post by amanaplanacanal »

ForHackernews wrote: post #107
bruce511 wrote: post #5

When 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…

Counterpoint: Loads of merchants refuse to accept American Express because the fees are higher. Some merchants have gone to court for the right to offer lower "cash prices" – something Visa/Mastercard oppose because they want those fees hidden. Clearly, at least some merchants are price-sensitive and would be interested in a lower-fee alternative to Visa/MC.

It sounds like all merchants in the US have been able to offer lower cash prices for over 10 years now. I rarely see it though.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#152

Post by _1tem »

albertdessaint wrote: post #134

Interesting read, I searched if another startup got this market right, it seems truelayer did using open banking for online payment ($700m valuation) https://truelayer.com/

Many countries in Europe have pay-by-bank solutions that work really well.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#153

Post by closewith »

_1tem wrote: post #148
closewith wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's definitely true, and it's also how the MasterCard and Visa monopoly remains dominant. Just look at the extreme backlash of Trump's administration against the Brazilian Central Bank's plans to sell the Pix protocol abroad.

There’s a geopolitical reason for this. Ability to print a world reserve currency and apply sanctions to control capital flow are among the primary tools of American power.

Yes, I'm aware. The dominance of the dollar and the US financial services corporations is no accident.

This further reinforces that it's a government that's maintaining the Visa/Mastercard duopoly and it will be governments that break it.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#154

Post by amanaplanacanal »

kennywinker wrote: post #92
Copenjin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A solution to what? Serious question, I don't have any issue with the current model. Or are you referring to recent events?

The problem of paying 1-3% of every purchase to credit card companies, causing everything to cost 1-3% more.

Are merchants going to charge different prices depending on your payment method? Or stop taking visa/MasterCard entirely? I don't see either one of those happening.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#155

Post by scotty79 »

Copenjin wrote: post #46
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #42

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.

A solution to what? Serious question, I don't have any issue with the current model. Or are you referring to recent events?

To duopoly exploiting customers? Europe knocked down transfer fees to 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit card. All fees for the merchant sum up to something around 1%. So anything on top of that, that Visa customers pay in US is pure exploitation. And US government isn't doing anything so people see alternate solutions for this problem.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#156

Post by scotty79 »

jader201 wrote: post #40
eszed wrote: post #29

Earlier 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…

Handling cash is obviously cheaper in Germany because merchants discourage customers from using their credit cards every time they can.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#157

Post by scotty79 »

bruce511 wrote: post #5

When 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…

> Secondly it costs the consumer nothing. The cost goes to the merchant. If anything the customer gets rewards.

Ultimately customer pays for everything. Credit card companies just prevent merchants from revealing the costs of using credit cards to customers. Which should be illegal.

> Fixing Visa doesn't work because the people that matter don't think it's broken.

People don't know it's broken because regulator doesn't do their job and lets credit companies police merchants.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#158

Post by scotty79 »

blitzar wrote: post #67

> cheaper payments ... Zenobia Pay charges 1%. 5x higher than they would be allowed to charge in the EU. > accept pay-by-bank I am reminded of tech bros inventing the bus in 2025

They make sense on US market but I had a chuckle when they mentioned European brands giving them cold shoulder. This problem is solved in Europe through legislative action.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#159

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

Tor3 wrote: post #71
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well.. just a quick search (as I won't be talking a walk and photograph all the "cards only" signs I now see in so many places): https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/mar/16/uk-high-street... https://www.dnb.nl/en/general-news/news-2023/some-retail-sec... https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20gevkx8gyo https://www.aarp.org/money/personal-finance/no-cash-accepted... https://educaloi.qc.ca/en/legal-news/do-you-have-the…

Well I appreciate the effort, might need to look a closer look since my country has UPI and its basically free transactions instantly and even then we are constantly warned by our older generation to always carry cash too as there are places that will still not accept UPI or you would need to go to shop, do upi payment, get cash etc. and I kinda agree, I have seen/heard of even many fights happening because UPI wasn't accepted.

and that is when UPI is almost ubiquitous, I can't imagine a shop saying cards only. I think it might be illegal where I live.

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