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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

#221

Post by heikkilevanto »

bjghknggkk wrote: post #176
pjmlp wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Show me a german webshop that supports modern payment methods. It usually old school bank transfers still.

I just bought Kampot peppers from https://www.unclespepper.com/ which is in Germany, the name notwithstanding. And yes, I paid with my Danish Visa card. No problems except that I had to adjust my ad blocker once.

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

#222

Post by KellyCriterion »

consp wrote: post #156
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.

There is also a major difference as I understand it. They need to be resolved at the end of a certain period. There is a legal difference from Credit cards as in there is no continual liability and thus no continued line of credit. Getting a true credit card is also a lot harder here (not France) than a deferred payment card (usually 1 month) and has stricter credit checks.

Visa and MC have basicly all of these configurations, depending on country & legislation: - Direct Debit - Deffered Debit - Rolling Credit - Installment Credit

And if you are a $MegaBigCorp customer of them, you can customize even more.

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

#223

Post by loeg »

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…

This risk is all covered by the banks, not the interchange networks?

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

#224

Post by direwolf20 »

m-schuetz wrote: post #96
krunck wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is one of the biggest issues here, that the EU is actually forbidding to charge credit card users the transaction fee. On the contrary, it should make it mandatory that card users have to pay the transaction fees themselves. This would automatically force card providers to reduce their fees, because nobody wants to use cards with high fees. It would also get rid of nonsensical cash-back systems.

The EU also regulated the fee to be very low, something like 0.1% of the transaction value, comparable to the implicit costs of handling cash. If it was America–style 5% then it would be a problem, but at 0.1% it's not.

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

#225

Post by iso1631 »

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...

Mainly because cash processing fees are higher than electronic, and the primary use of cash is to avoid paying tax

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

#226

Post by KellyCriterion »

memsom wrote: post #202
V__ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for This is a uniquely American viewpoint. In most of Europe you don't buy anything on credit ever.

I would have said "true", or at least - I would have said "I do, but never incurring a charge on next month's bill", but with services like Flex from Monzo, you can actually get credit over 3 months with 0% interest rates, which not only makes buying stuff more likely, but spreads out the costs. It doesn't solve over spending though.

How much is it?

You could draw all of it and put in a a 2x leveraged SP500 ETF :-D for 3 month and then return the money :-D

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

#227

Post by codyb »

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…

Sounds like you should build a competitor if that's literally all it is...

I suspect there's quite a few other things you have to consider when you're managing trillions of dollars of transactions a year. Fraud, settlement times, up times, security, customer service, debt collection, interest rate calculation, reach, KYC, record keeping, legal inquiries.

But I'm sure we're just a couple grok comments away from a competitor

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

#228

Post by coffeebeqn »

thompson2908 wrote: post #125

In Poland we have quite popular and handy BLIK system: https://www.blik.com Card terminals here in Poland usually accept BLIK payments It is also very popular payment method in e-commerce

We have MobilePay - looks like it’s made by Vipps. It’s my preferred payment method these days and works great for things like farmer markets etc. zero fees and you can verify you got the right counterparty in seconds. I also pay e-commerce with it. The technology is not complicated to have an excellent payment system! People who think getting rid of Visa is impossible have not travelled anywhere - I even see people talk about PayPal as a good example smh

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

#229

Post by wiether »

vidarh wrote: post #191
V__ wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for This is a uniquely American viewpoint. In most of Europe you don't buy anything on credit ever.

There are numerous credit providers in Europe that would beg to differ. By December 2025, consumer credit in the Euro area alone stood at an estimated €812 billion.

Are you talking about the same thing?

Sure, in Europe people will subscribe to a credit to buy a car or materials to improve their home.

But buying your groceries or lunch with a credit card is quite a rare exception.

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

#230

Post by pimterry »

computomatic wrote: post #7

Most, if not all countries have their own domestic payment systems. This is about cross-border payments within the EU. “Breakup” seems a bit exaggerated considering the % of payment volume which might switch to the new system.

> “Breakup” seems a bit exaggerated considering the % of payment volume which might switch to the new system.

Brazil introduced Pix in 2019, it's now the most used payment method for all transactions nationwide, ahead of both cards & cash.

India introduced UPI in 2016, it now handles >80% of digital payments there, and handles more transactions a day than Visa does worldwide.

It's totally plausible to me that a similar replacement could overtake cards completely within a decade. The lack of cross-border support means "Pay with Bizum" is a niche feature that's only useful in Spain, but if "Pay with Wero" becomes an instant & ~free payment method that works for hundreds of millions of users then it's a very different ballgame.

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