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What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

tautology.town

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Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#51

Post by FabCH »

shevy-java wrote: post #37

Europeans really need to stop handing their money over to Trump-Visa and Trump-Card here. Canadians learned that lesson already. Why do european politicians not learn anything? Leyen even signed a surrender treaty where european taxpayers lose money that goes into the USA. I say stop it with the proxy-control from Washington.

Europeans have alternative payment networks already. For example, CH has Twint.

They are actively being unified into a cross-border payment network.

Of all the things to complain, this is the one where they are actually doing something…

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#53

Post by toomuchtodo »

shevy-java wrote: post #37

Europeans really need to stop handing their money over to Trump-Visa and Trump-Card here. Canadians learned that lesson already. Why do european politicians not learn anything? Leyen even signed a surrender treaty where european taxpayers lose money that goes into the USA. I say stop it with the proxy-control from Washington.

Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48647444 - June 2026 (376 comments)

European Parliament committee backs digital euro - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48645468 - June 2026 (2 comments)

Gov.uk has replaced Stripe with Dutch provider Adyen - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48415217 - June 2026 (235 comments)

Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48207004 - May 2026 (777 comments)

Wero – Digital payment wallet, made in Europe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038965 - February 2026 (132 comments)

Europe's Banks Launch Wero Payments to Dislodge Visa, Mastercard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41666833 - September 2024 (88 comments)

Unofficial Wero Adoption Tracker - https://www.werotracker.eu/

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

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

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#54

Post by umeshunni »

Peanuts99 wrote: post #50
RobRivera wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would explain why so many damn coffee shops dont deal with cash now - the double as a coffee shop and data reseller

Merchants aren't going cash only to sell your data, they're doing it because it's expensive to handle cash and makes their taxes a whole lot more troublesome too.

Not to mention the crime risk of cash

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#55

Post by hgomersall »

tonymet wrote: post #23
hungryhobbit wrote: post #2

They tax our entire economy at X rate, while maintaining their infrastructure only requires Y cost ... and X is significantly higher than Y. From the actual article: > The payment processor keeps 0.35% ($0.35), then pays 2% ($2.00) to the cardholder’s issuing bank and 0.15% ($0.15) to Visa. The 2% is the interchange fee, commonly known as interchange. The 0.15% is the network assessment fee. 8 In other words, they ge…

Goods (and services) are priced at what the customer is willing to pay. In this case, the alternative is cash or cheques, both have much higher loss rates. That’s why vendors are eager to take visa over cash.

No, the alternatives are any number of other solutions that are not given a look-in to the very lucrative duopoly. The network effects are prohibitive for upstarts.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#56

Post by why-el »

mikepurvis wrote: post #32
RobRivera wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would explain why so many damn coffee shops dont deal with cash now - the double as a coffee shop and data reseller

I mean, cash is also expensive in its own way. It has to be handled and insured, coins may need to be rolled before being taken to the bank, a register is a mechanical device to power and maintain, petty theft by employees is a concern. It's not really that hard to see why a business charging $5-20 per transaction from people who all have phones and credit cards anyway might choose not to accept cash.

> a register is a mechanical device to power and maintain,

surely a million times less expensive than a subscription to a POS....this is not a strong argument.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#57

Post by nonethewiser »

tonymet wrote: post #18

Don’t forget arbitrage, which is the withholding of transferred funds for 7 days while the capital remains in visa’s accounts for “investing” / speculation. It’s like if you gave your buddy $100 to give to his room mate, and he decides to wait a week and gamble it on Kalshi

>It’s like if you gave your buddy $100 to give to his room mate, and he decides to wait a week and gamble it on Kalshi

Or treasuries.

Its actually a minor part of rheir business.

And frankly who cares given that its a sustainable system. I pay on credit and then someone else pays. I dont give a shit of they are betting on how many times Al Roker says Trump on New Years Eve.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#58

Post by ianhawes »

losvedir wrote: post #44

I play the credit card "game" because I hate feeling like I'm leaving money on the table, but I really wish I didn't have to. Some degrees of fees make sense, to run the network, and handle fraud, but it's ridiculous that people have this sense that shopping should somehow fund your vacation. Where I am it's increasingly common to see credit card fees when checking out. I get it, because merchants are being charged 3…

There is, it's called debit cards, but Stripe et al. "simplified" pricing by charging a percentage regardless of card type instead of the traditional interchange-plus pricing. Merchant banks "used to" make money by tacking on fixed fees, i.e. a set-up fee, terminal fee, monthly fee, etc, but then Stripe came along and provided (1) a better dev experience, (2) better onboarding, and (3) simplified pricing.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#59

Post by throw1234567891 »

tonymet wrote: post #18

Don’t forget arbitrage, which is the withholding of transferred funds for 7 days while the capital remains in visa’s accounts for “investing” / speculation. It’s like if you gave your buddy $100 to give to his room mate, and he decides to wait a week and gamble it on Kalshi

You better don't look into how banks make money on your savings.

Re: What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks

#60

Post by sillysaurusx »

losvedir wrote: post #44

I play the credit card "game" because I hate feeling like I'm leaving money on the table, but I really wish I didn't have to. Some degrees of fees make sense, to run the network, and handle fraud, but it's ridiculous that people have this sense that shopping should somehow fund your vacation. Where I am it's increasingly common to see credit card fees when checking out. I get it, because merchants are being charged 3…

Agreed. The pool hall nearby has a game of pool for $2. But if you use a credit card the minimum purchase is $6 (three games) due to fees. It works, but I thought it was a gimmick to trap people into playing more pool until I saw your comment here and realized it was from fees.
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