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Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

europeanbusinessmagazine.com

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Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#101

Post by Beretta_Vexee »

eastbayjake wrote: post #97
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #8

I always find it entertaining to hear people try to argue that what these companies do is soooooo difficult and that's why they're valuable. It's just multiple computers keeping a balance. It's not complicated. No, these companies keep themselves in power not because they've solved such a difficult problem that nobody else can, but because they have a moat which they protect. Time to do away with these foreign entiti…

I'm a little shocked that of all the comments so far, no one has mentioned the financial risk borne by this whole value chain. OP is operating as if it's just a debit system moving money from one account to another but: - For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for -- credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk i…

There are many countries where debit cards are the norm and credit cards are extremely rare. In France, people are so afraid of consumer credit that cards are renamed ‘deferred debit cards’ rather than credit cards, otherwise people do not want them.

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#102

Post by functionmouse »

eastbayjake wrote: post #97
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #8

I always find it entertaining to hear people try to argue that what these companies do is soooooo difficult and that's why they're valuable. It's just multiple computers keeping a balance. It's not complicated. No, these companies keep themselves in power not because they've solved such a difficult problem that nobody else can, but because they have a moat which they protect. Time to do away with these foreign entiti…

I'm a little shocked that of all the comments so far, no one has mentioned the financial risk borne by this whole value chain. OP is operating as if it's just a debit system moving money from one account to another but: - For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for -- credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk i…

I shouldn't have to pay for your usury economy if I'm using cash. If that were really the issue, these companies would have no problems with businesses charging different prices or offering discounts for cash.

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#103

Post by glenneroo »

krunck wrote: post #32
hnfong wrote: post #20

Even putting aside issue of geopolitics, it's quite baffling to me that every country besides China and Russia are paying ~0.2% "sales tax" to corporate America.

This. And don't forget that most businesses have in their payment processing contract terms (set forth by Visa/MC ) that prevent the business from directly charging card users the card processing fees. Which means that everybody - even cash users - pay for those fees. What a racket.

The official Apple store (McShark) in Vienna used to pass this ~3% charge on to consumers (a few years ago, not sure if it's still true today - and also there is a real Apple Store now).

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#104

Post by ericmay »

chihuahua wrote: post #88
ericmay wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, these companies keep themselves in power not because they've solved such a difficult problem that nobody else can, but because they have a moat which they protect. I don't know that the problem is sophisticated, but it's certainly complex [1]. It's a bit of both in terms of complexity and defending a moat, which all businesses do, including, and especially European ones. And companies like Visa, Mastercard, Ame…

> Today you can, at least as an American, just walk in to the subway in just about any country and tap to pay. Is that really true? I remember wanting to buy a train ticket at Charles De Gaulle airport, and the machine only took French credit cards. That was around 2010, so I don't know if something changed.

Ha, well I was just in France last April and didn't have an issue at the machine to buy the train ticket. Though, unfortunately the train just so happened to cease to function on our last night there so we had to take an Uber in to Paris [1].

The wonderful French train company wouldn't refund the ticket either and instead insisted that we might use it one day on another trip to France. Thankfully by the time I got to the front of the line to chat in broken French to the ticket administrator, I had already accepted my fate after hearing a number of tourists (not Americans mind you) yell and stomp their feet uselessly in hopes of obtaining a refund.

[1] That was a fun adventure too. At CDG, well I found out later that taxis are "allowed" and are the same price as the Uber ride and so we could have avoided this by just taking a taxi through Uber, but a group of folks from Great Britain were ahead of me in line and I came across them later when looking for where to get a taxi/Uber. There were rideshare signs or something but they didn't lead anywhere that made sense. They seemed rather aspirational. Well, one of the members of the British group spoke good French (or good enough) and found out the secret spot to go after chatting with an airport employee I think it's at Terminal E (someone else may know for sure) or something and so my wife and I befriended the same British group and went along with them for the long walk over.

We were able to get a ride, though not cheap. Of course the bus was an option and we're no stranger, but we were on vacation and the $50 ride was just chalked up to the cost of doing business. We were already 2 hours behind schedule because of the train fiasco.

All that to say, I think using an American credit card these days is the least of your concerns. I was surprised to see American Express taken rather much more widely than anticipated. Be careful getting gas though as they place holds on your card for $250 or something like that, and once you get enough holds you can't get any more until the prior ones "roll off".

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#105

Post by anal_reactor »

jsiepkes wrote: post #60
havaloc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's probably a little bit harder than you think with all the rules and regulations out there. I would highly encourage anybody who's remotely interested, listen to the Acquired podcast episode regarding Visa. It's actually quite fascinating how it was started. You may balk at the length, but the whole thing had me interested. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/visa

In the Netherlands, before VISA, there already was a national debit card standard called PIN [1]. Sure, times have changed and it's probably not super easy, but it's also not going to be super hard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIN_(debit_card)

Fun fact: until about a year ago it was not possible to pay using normal debit cards in most Dutch shops, you had to have a local card. I distinctly remember that AH, Vomar and Jumbo would typically reject foreign cards while Lidl and Dirk would typically accept them. Of course there were exceptions, but that was the rule of thumb.

Most Dutch people were unaware of the issue (because Dutch cards worked abroad), and those who were, were fully convinced that it's because Dutch system is objectively better (it wasn't, it was just a separate network). Then in like 2024/2025 Visa and Mastercard finally retired their special V-Pay and Maestro brands, and now most terminals in the Netherlands accept most normal cards.

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#106

Post by compounding_it »

leosanchez wrote: post #67
compounding_it wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The competition is high with online ordering (which accepts cards), so the incentive is to not lose customers. in fact people have become so desperate for more sales that they would let you take something and pay later but not lose you as a customer.

I was talking about small businesses like restaurants which generally used to accept credit card even before UPI. Now very few accept credit cards. Even before UPI credit cards were common accepted online. So I am not sure about that as well.

Small businesses generally dont because the setup for a merchant POS is quite a bit of hassle. In fact maintaining that device also costs money. A UPI merchant on the other hand is quite easy and free from what I know. This setup with visa mastercard might change in the future (with square like devices). However there is also a security problem so fraud might increase with that. Very interesting times for visa and mastercard who have basically not innovated since their existence and yet somehow have grown so big.

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#108

Post by glenneroo »

mdavid626 wrote: post #95

I use ING DIBA bank. I enabled WERO in the app, as that’s the only way for me to use it. I can send money ONLY to my contacts. It doesn’t allow to type in phone number, one needs to create a contact. I feel like Europe is just doomed. The stupidity is endless here.

Yeah but now we have instant EU-wide SEPA transfers for free, so it's not all stupidity! Also it took years to implement - banks are slow at implementing new tech. WERO is still very new, if it takes off, eventually banks will hopefully support it.

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#109

Post by eastbayjake »

functionmouse wrote: post #102
eastbayjake wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little shocked that of all the comments so far, no one has mentioned the financial risk borne by this whole value chain. OP is operating as if it's just a debit system moving money from one account to another but: - For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for -- credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk i…

I shouldn't have to pay for your usury economy if I'm using cash. If that were really the issue, these companies would have no problems with businesses charging different prices or offering discounts for cash.

The networks allow cash discounts if it's posted clearly and the customer has an option to use a different payment method -- you see this on every gas station sign alongside every highway in America. (What's _not_ permitted is adding a secret surcharge or item mark-up for credit card payments)

Re: Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun

#110

Post by account42 »

chihuahua wrote: post #88
ericmay wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, these companies keep themselves in power not because they've solved such a difficult problem that nobody else can, but because they have a moat which they protect. I don't know that the problem is sophisticated, but it's certainly complex [1]. It's a bit of both in terms of complexity and defending a moat, which all businesses do, including, and especially European ones. And companies like Visa, Mastercard, Ame…

> Today you can, at least as an American, just walk in to the subway in just about any country and tap to pay. Is that really true? I remember wanting to buy a train ticket at Charles De Gaulle airport, and the machine only took French credit cards. That was around 2010, so I don't know if something changed.

Well the reverse has been true IME - my Visa credit/debit cards issued by an European Bank have worked just fine abroad, including in the US. There are certainly edge cases where transactions get denied or US people think every card must have a Zip code but overall yes you can just pay.
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