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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

#181

Post by AtlasBarfed »

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…

They are taking a percentage point or two on the entire consumer payment system.

I think there's plenty of money to back all the activity.

Especially if there are central banks willing to back them

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

#182

Post by notahacker »

saubeidl wrote: post #48
ajb wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each individual detail isn't difficult, the moat is dealing with a huge, huge, pile of them. But most of the details are driven by laws and regulations: of the entity in charge of those things decides it doesn't want you to have a moat any more, you've got a problem. If there's one thing the EU really does have, it's the capacity to revise regulations.

> If there's one thing the EU really does have, it's the capacity to revise regulations. This is the central power lever of the EU and one that is frequently underestimated. European power projection doesn't work through tanks and aircraft carriers. It works with regulations, trade deals and economic incentives. Remember how a few years ago everyone was scrambling to get GDPR-compliant? That wasn't some random event.…

Yep. And whereas the EU can't magic itself into having enough fossil fuels or bootstrap a commercially viable reusable rocket launch industry overnight, it absolutely can align payments legislation and mandate that point of sale devices accepting Payment Provider I in Europe should also accept Payment Provider II...

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

#183

Post by gpderetta »

carlosjobim wrote: post #172
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Debit cards come with the same fraud protection as credit cards do, which is the most important benefit of Visa/MasterCard.

In UK, consumer protection for Credit Cards is guaranteed by law (Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act), but not for Debit Cards (that's contractual).

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

#184

Post by direwolf20 »

graemep wrote: post #167
bombcar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Some European countries forbid a price difference but they also limit card fees very low, so the merchant doesn't lose money and you don't get cash back. Forbidding a price difference but allowing high fees is nothing but pure corruption.

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

#185

Post by autoexec »

tzs wrote: post #94

I wonder if this will draw tariff threats? Last August US threatened tariffs on Brazil over their Pix system. One of the reasons given was that people using Pix instead of credit cards deprived Visa and Mastercard of fees.

When anything or nothing at all can draw tariff threats at any time it stops making sense to worry about what may or may not anger an insane clown overseas and you should just do the best thing for your nation and its people. Reducing dependence on the US is the smart thing to do and retaliation would just make it more obvious how important it is to get away from the US to the extent that you can as fast as possible.

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

#186

Post by Ninn »

Coeur wrote: post #165

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 roam…

Like sepa, this initiative can be forced by law and made open rather than tanken hostage by large cooperates, which may then exclude parts of the market.

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

#187

Post by margana »

pjmlp wrote: post #164
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.

The problem isn't just getting something that works across all European countries. It's getting something that works globally.

While we may make most of our payments within EU, basically everyone still occasionally pays for something outside of EU, either online or when they travel. This means if the new thing only works in EU, every European will still need and have a MasterCard/Visa even if they use it less often than before.

This is still a massive amount of leverage - MC/Visa still have the ability to block payments made from EU citizens/companies to outside.

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

#188

Post by direwolf20 »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #150
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…

Hmm, maybe for countries with strong consumer protection, yes. I lost 3 credit cards INSIDE an airplane (hello AirAsia!). I only realized it when I turned on my phone while queuing at immigration and was bombarded with dozens of "Successful transaction" messages. That's ~30min from stepping off the airplane. When I checked my statements, I saw dozens of physical transactions (swipes/taps) with different merchants in…

Lawsuit time! Against your bank.

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

#189

Post by carlosjobim »

jimnotgym wrote: post #142
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…

> Buying a bottle of Calvados in some remote area? Yea just tap to pay with your Mastercard. Hard disagree. Until Covid, many small shops didn't take cards in Europe. Taxis, restaurants, market stalls, even trains were often cash only not that long ago. I in the UK ran accounts in companies that had people travel extensively in Europe. We used to issue travellers with EUR200 for the things that cards couldn't buy. Mo…

What is Europe in this sense? In the Europe I know, every small business has accepted cards for decades. The exception if there are some children selling strawberries to tourists.

As for your second paragraph, you seem to be dreaming. Americans are some of the best tourists to deal with, and anybody who works in the tourism sector is happy to receive them.

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