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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

#161

Post by pmontra »

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…

Cash flow and fraud, yes. Credit, not much in most of Europe. AFAIK nobody has had something close to real credit cards until recently. They were called credit cards but it was a debit card with payment and deferred to the end of the month and backed only by the cash in the bank account linked to the card. I guess that no financial institution did like to risk any money on the behavior of European customers.

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

#162

Post by ericmay »

jimnotgym wrote: post #147
ericmay wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could do that, but that sucks. Not just in philosophy (I don't want to download your crappy app - this applies to any country) but also in practice. Thankfully Americans at least have enough purchasing power that the demand for convenience - just take my money with this card will keep us away from bad solutions in Europe.

>Well, you could do that, but that sucks Only sucks for the Americans though, I think most people non American countries will be fine with that

No it sucks for everyone haha. It's an objectively worse experience compared to just using a card (debit or credit).

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

#163

Post by sjm-lbm »

overfeed wrote: post #151
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…

> credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk it will not be repaid, and that risk ends up reflected in processing fees Neither Visa nor MasterCard are loaning customers their money. It's the European banks that hold the bulk of the risk for European credit card transactions.

Also worth noting that who owns the risk is a regulatory question, not a technical or product one - and, like all regulatory questions, is different for different countries/regions.

Chip and pin and NFC transitions took off much quicker outside the US because merchants generally owned more of the chargeback risk than in the US, and therefore were willing to update their POS equipment accordingly.

Risk (like debt) is another place where a US-centric view will likely lead you to misunderstand the purpose of Visa/MC.

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

#164

Post by pjmlp »

severino wrote: post #135

Whatever they come up with, I hope it doesn't tie you to a Google or Apple smartphone. Can't we have cards for this? In Spain, for example, to use Bizum, you need either an Android/iOS smartphone (and for the Android case, as you use it from your bank's app, it would typically require some Google security assurances - so no Huawei phones allowed, for example) or logging into your bank's website and use Bizum from the…

On Portugal we have the Multibanco network, which already provided Internet like services for buying stuff on the terminals and eventually graduated to have online payments as well, however only in Portugal.

Likewise, in Germany we can have SEPA for most stuff.

And in Greece there is Viva.

Problem is getting something that actually works across all European countries.

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

#165

Post by Coeur »

Not sure Wero will succeed, but European country-specific mobile payment systems like Swish (Sweden), Vipps (rest of Scandinavia), Bizum (Spain), iDeal (Netherlands), Bluecode (Germany and Austria), Twint (Switzerland), BLIK (Poland) etc. are also working on interconnectivity under the EMPSA association. Combined they already have 110+ million users.

Wero is like a monolith, while EMPSA is more like mobile phone roaming. If I would bet, I would bet on EMPSA.

https://empsa.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_System...

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

#166

Post by gdulli »

severino wrote: post #135

Whatever they come up with, I hope it doesn't tie you to a Google or Apple smartphone. Can't we have cards for this? In Spain, for example, to use Bizum, you need either an Android/iOS smartphone (and for the Android case, as you use it from your bank's app, it would typically require some Google security assurances - so no Huawei phones allowed, for example) or logging into your bank's website and use Bizum from the…

I use my credit and debit cards the same way today as I did before smartphones existed. I never invited the extra surveillance middleman of Google/Apple into my transactions. And the convenience of tapping or swiping a plastic card is simpler than using my phone anyway. Is this not possible in Spain?

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

#167

Post by graemep »

bombcar wrote: post #140
eastbayjake wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The latter is allowed now - after the backs of the credit card processors were broken . They fought tooth and nail against cash discounts OR credit surcharges and they finally lost. In some areas it's rampant that you get a pretty substantial discount - often 4 or 5%, better than cash-back - and many places post "cash prices". You can get even more if you're willing to ride the hassle of the gift card train. The cred…

The UK actually forbids cash discounts and cred surcharges by law - and has done so since at least 2012.

Credit card companies are allowed to run cashback for using them.

All in the name of "consumer rights": https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/payment-surcharge...

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

#169

Post by Hikikomori »

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…

Switch? We mostly use debit cards today.

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

#170

Post by ajsnigrutin »

account42 wrote: post #133
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is interoperability. Now most merchants have to work with two companies, visa and mastercard. Want to accept russian MIR cards? Well, in some countries you're not allowed to, and in some, you must, since visa and mastercard don't work there. Now if you add a european company to the mix... whill their cards get accepted in south africa? What about in eg turkey? China? Will whatever indian alternative…

Most merchants don't work with Visa and Mastercard, they work with payment processors like Fiserv, or other middle men even further removed from the card networks, that already abstract all the different cards (including existing local debit cards) away into a unified flow.

Sure, there's a gajillion of those processors all over the world, and they somehow all work with mastercard and visa.

Diners club? Well.. "it depends". Many don't work with it.

Indian, russian, chinese, cards? Maybe in india, russia and china, but you shouldn't expect it to work "everywhere" like visa and mastercard. Same will be true for EU cards for quite a few years, especially if the system gets fragmented into many different companies using many different systems, and you'll always wonder if your german card will get accepted in Algeria like your friends' french card is.

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