Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

tautology.town

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 341 posts

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

#71

Post by toast0 »

asdff wrote: post #65
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…

Another thing to consider is your credit card rewards cash back etc are really trading your privacy for a little rounding error worth of discount in comparison to using cash. You may also save far more money going cash only. E.g. some local restaurants near me give you like 5% off paying in cash. Gas is generally cheaper cash price vs card price or debit fee. You have a big job with a contractor, tell them you might…

> Another thing to consider is your credit card rewards cash back etc are really trading your privacy for a little rounding error worth of discount in comparison to using cash.

How much privacy really? If I get mostly $20s from the ATM, and the merchant does daily deposits of most of the $20s they get, why wouldn't banks start scanning and tracking serial numbers (if they don't already), if my purchasing habits are actually valuable?

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

#72

Post by maelito »

Well I don't really know what they do, but what I know is that Visa transactions costs are 0,22 € out of a payment of 1 €, Mastercard's is 0,23 €, and the French CB network is 0,17 €.

All of them do the same : ensure I get the money from the customer. Of course it's a larger project to run this in the whole world, but shouldn't it scale to less along with the number of billions of customers instead of the other way round ?

This is an insane amount of money. They killed micro-transactions, they killed the business model of the Web in favor of ads, the only popular way to do microtransactions right now.

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

#73

Post by ButlerianJihad »

toast0 wrote: post #71
asdff wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing to consider is your credit card rewards cash back etc are really trading your privacy for a little rounding error worth of discount in comparison to using cash. You may also save far more money going cash only. E.g. some local restaurants near me give you like 5% off paying in cash. Gas is generally cheaper cash price vs card price or debit fee. You have a big job with a contractor, tell them you might…

> Another thing to consider is your credit card rewards cash back etc are really trading your privacy for a little rounding error worth of discount in comparison to using cash. How much privacy really? If I get mostly $20s from the ATM, and the merchant does daily deposits of most of the $20s they get, why wouldn't banks start scanning and tracking serial numbers (if they don't already), if my purchasing habits are a…

https://www.wheresgeorge.com/

> The site was officially launched on December 23, 1998.

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

#74

Post by foobarian »

seri4l wrote: post #48
tonymet wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jokes on you. Merchants prefer credit cards because there is less loss than cash. 2.5% is nothing compared to 5-10% loss at the register. Plus easier and more accurate accounting.

>5-10% loss at the register Where did you get this number from?

Clankers found me one study [1] that suggests total handling costs may actually be this bad, but are highly business dependent e.g. restaurants are worse than grocery stores

[1] https://www.ihlservices.com/product/the-cost-of-cash-handlin...

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

#75

Post by anjel »

Onavo wrote: post #40
tonymet wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jokes on you. Merchants prefer credit cards because there is less loss than cash. 2.5% is nothing compared to 5-10% loss at the register. Plus easier and more accurate accounting.

ACH is still the best https://gocardless.com/

While cc banks are in these times starting to side more with vendors on charge disputes, its still far more recourse than bank drafts offer you in a transactional dispute

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

#78

Post by Terr_ »

foobarian wrote: post #67
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

Huh, I thought accepting legal tender was a federal rule, I guess not. Looks like a salad variety of regulations that vary by state and city.

> Huh, I thought accepting legal tender was a federal rule, I guess not.

I think the key word is debt when bills state "for all debts, public and private." (And a couple more categories under the law. [0])

At the moment you're asking for the drink, you are not in debt to the coffee shop, they're setting a precondition on an exchange. [1] Now, you might have a case if they let you run up a tab...

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/5103

[1] Yes, there are a positive number of milliseconds where somebody owes somebody something, but pedantic software intuitions don't always apply to law, and overall that's a good thing.

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

#80

Post by RobRivera »

foobarian wrote: post #67
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

Huh, I thought accepting legal tender was a federal rule, I guess not. Looks like a salad variety of regulations that vary by state and city.

Well technically, all debts denominated in cash must be able to be settled with cash.

Companies simply get ahead of that law by refusing to provide the service or good.

Works in retail bc at the till they can just say 'no cash no business deal'

Doesn't work in other ventures so easily.

It is along the lines of 'we reserve the right to refuse business to anyone'

Post reply on HN