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

zenobiapay.com

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

#171

Post by voldacar »

FabHK wrote: post #167

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete not to mention that basically only the US has these high credit card interchange fees of 2-3%. EU & UK cap it at 0.3% (0.2% for debit cards), and the rest of the world are closer to EU than US fees, if I understand correctly. The power of the free market.

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete to blame these fees on "the power of the free market" when the visa / mastercard duopoly exists due to regulations making the entry barrier to creating a new card network essentially infinite

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

#172

Post by worthless-trash »

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.

I can assure you in Australia, this is -clearly- not true, vendors pass the cost on to the consumer. I can probably choose a random store and prove this.

> The cost goes to the merchant.

And who do you think would pay the merchants costs in this case ?

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

#173

Post by Esophagus4 »

_1tem wrote: post #150
thayne wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very much a chicken and egg problem. Merchants have no reason to adopt it if there aren't very many customers that use it, and customers have no reason to adopt it unless there are a lot of merchants, or at least some important frequently used merchants that use it. I think for a new payment system to catch on it needs to either have a significant benefit for both payers and merchants, or be pushed by governmen…

One way to solve this problem is to have a certain commodity require the new payment method. If AWS for example created a new currency/payment method and made it the sole accepted way to pay for servers it could very quickly catch on as others adopt. Look how “Sign in with Google” became the default. I’m pretty sure the main reason Apple/Google/Microsoft haven’t done this already is because they would be directly com…

> The idea must get shut down pretty quickly by powerful people.

There’s no larger conspiracy here. It’s that payments is a commodity now, with shrinking margins and high competition. It’s not worth it for most players to even enter the space, let alone compete tooth and nail for a shrinking share of the pie.

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

#174

Post by TehCorwiz »

voldacar wrote: post #171
FabHK wrote: post #167

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete not to mention that basically only the US has these high credit card interchange fees of 2-3%. EU & UK cap it at 0.3% (0.2% for debit cards), and the rest of the world are closer to EU than US fees, if I understand correctly. The power of the free market.

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete to blame these fees on "the power of the free market" when the visa / mastercard duopoly exists due to regulations making the entry barrier to creating a new card network essentially infinite

I think that was parent’s point. That the US does not have as free a market.

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

#175

Post by lan321 »

wat10000 wrote: post #168
olliem36 wrote: post #142

Cofounder of Lopay here - we have the same mission: offer free payments to businesses, but we're working with existing networks to do this. QR code payments are particularly hard in countries like US and UK as you're trying to change consumer behaviour. I tried doing this in 2014 and again in 2019 - both failed to gain traction (aside from during COVID). In the UK it's possible to accept card payments for 0% via Lopa…

QR codes feel like such a step backwards compared to NFC. The UX with current mobile OSes is not good. And if you require an app, or even worse an active data connection, well, I much prefer a quick double-click of my phone’s side button and then putting it near the payment terminal. And I’m really skeptical about security. NFC is vulnerable to relay attacks and QR codes can be secured by using one-time codes or roll…

I couldn't get a wallet app to work with GrapheneOS, so for me, QR codes are better, but they feel like they have different use cases. I like QR codes in mail invoices (very common in CH), I'd like NFC in a shop if I could use it.

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

#176

Post by lan321 »

Xss3 wrote: post #138
ttoinou wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best players to disrupt Visa Mastercard duopoly would rather be a consortium of payment processors such as Shopify / Stripe / Google Pay / Apple Pay and banks taking in sandwhich Visa and Mastercard (where the money is stored, where the money is spent)

I'm hoping steam builds their own.

They could probably make decent money with card graphics. I'd probably pay a couple bucks for a Gaben or an R6Siege card. Much more interesting than metal cards.

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

#177

Post by gunalx »

lan321 wrote: post #175
wat10000 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

QR codes feel like such a step backwards compared to NFC. The UX with current mobile OSes is not good. And if you require an app, or even worse an active data connection, well, I much prefer a quick double-click of my phone’s side button and then putting it near the payment terminal. And I’m really skeptical about security. NFC is vulnerable to relay attacks and QR codes can be secured by using one-time codes or roll…

I couldn't get a wallet app to work with GrapheneOS, so for me, QR codes are better, but they feel like they have different use cases. I like QR codes in mail invoices (very common in CH), I'd like NFC in a shop if I could use it.

Im im the same boat. Luckily in ny case a local banking app has their own NFC card Funktion witch works flawlessly.

But no tap to pay would for me have been one of the greatest downsides with graphene os.

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

#178

Post by IshKebab »

voldacar wrote: post #171
FabHK wrote: post #167

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete not to mention that basically only the US has these high credit card interchange fees of 2-3%. EU & UK cap it at 0.3% (0.2% for debit cards), and the rest of the world are closer to EU than US fees, if I understand correctly. The power of the free market.

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete to blame these fees on "the power of the free market" when the visa / mastercard duopoly exists due to regulations making the entry barrier to creating a new card network essentially infinite

I don't think it's due to regulations. It's just a natural monopoly due to network effects. Any new entrant has to convince hundreds of payment processors and retailers to accept their cards before anyone even has them. Regulations are a trivial barrier compared to that.

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

#179

Post by eldaisfish »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #149
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why you take both but make the credit card customer eat the fees. Then many customers will save you (i.e. themselves) the money by paying cash and the ones that insist on using a credit card are free to pay what it actually costs.

Why do I almost never see a cash discount like this in practice? An I shopping in the wrong places? Or does something else prevent it?

Because that’s your subjective experience?

Canada has lots of stores that offer a discount if you pay cash. Many have a minimum purchase amount for credit cards.

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

#180

Post by abirch »

voldacar wrote: post #171
FabHK wrote: post #167

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete not to mention that basically only the US has these high credit card interchange fees of 2-3%. EU & UK cap it at 0.3% (0.2% for debit cards), and the rest of the world are closer to EU than US fees, if I understand correctly. The power of the free market.

Seems misleading or at the very least incomplete to blame these fees on "the power of the free market" when the visa / mastercard duopoly exists due to regulations making the entry barrier to creating a new card network essentially infinite

Anyone is free to use discover and it works for most merchants in the USA.

American Express leverages the fact that most consumers don’t care what the merchant is charged

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