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

281–290 of 313 posts

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

#281

Post by fundatus »

maelito wrote: post #72

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 r…

Seems like you're getting scammed. Sumup for example charges 1,75 % per transaction, no other costs, not even a monthly fee. With a monthly fee the transaction cost drops to just 0.89%.

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

#282

Post by fallingbananna »

thomasahle wrote: post #88
maelito wrote: post #72

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 r…

They charge you 23%? I thought in the EU the maximum interchange fee for consumer credit cards is capped at 0.3% of the transaction value.

I think they may be confusing what payment terminal providers charge with what VISA/Mastercard does.

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

#283

Post by fallingbananna »

missedthecue wrote: post #272
mococa wrote: post #119

In brazil we have pix with 0 fees.

Between individuals it is free. For commercial transactions, there is a fee between 0.22% and 0.33% per transaction, which is actually ~2x the fee of the Visa network (0.13%)! Visa is extremely efficient at moving money anywhere in the world. Credit and debit card transactions have higher fees because unlike Pix, there is chargeback risk, and the the merchant and acquiring banks party to the transaction are compensat…

I could imagine that Pix is still better for merchants if that is the final fee.

With Visa and Mastercard there are usually many additional actors that also take their share and drive the final fee up.

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

#284

Post by JetSetIlly »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #104
qurren wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think "I should be nice to merchants" and pay everything in cash. That was 15 years ago. Now, living costs have gone up, I'm getting taxed to death by not just governments but increasingly more by businesses themselves ("benefits fees", "installation fee", "convenience fee", guilt-tip screens, sneaky price increases, etc.) so now I feel no guilt in playing the system to get at least some of my money back. N…

> I used to think "I should be nice to merchants" and pay everything in cash. That is only "nicer" as it allows to evade taxes. (Which some may consider nice) But cost for cash is comparable to card payment if looked at seriously * You need working time to count it * You need working time to bring to bank (or request pickup, which costs) * The bank will charge the deposit * The bank will charge for the change you nee…

> That is only "nicer" as it allows to evade taxes. (Which some may consider nice)

Card only business can definitely evade tax too and many do.

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

#285

Post by fallingbananna »

nonethewiser wrote: post #52
3pm wrote: post #22

> The issuing bank keeps 2% Is this why the best cash back credit cards give 2%?

In the US. Not in Europe because interchange fees for consumer cards are capped at 0.3%

I've seen cards with 1% chargeback in the EU though. How does that work?

And it wasn't just a temporary marketing promotion. I've used such a card for many years.

(It was issues by a big bank that had almost no presence in my country... so maybe they were eating the cost just to build up a bigger presence and potentially enter the country?)

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

#286

Post by montenegrohugo »

topranks wrote: post #150
montenegrohugo wrote: post #112

Some light self-promotion but also longer term thoughts: A large part of the promise of crypto and stablecoins was to displace Visa and Mastercard rent-seeking. This didn't seem to happen. Most modern neobanks, our own included ( https://peanut.me ), actually seem to EMBRACE Visa and Mastercard. Almost all offer an actual Fiat card within their app, instead of boldly saying "No, pay with crypto, the future of money!"…

Crypto is in no way better money. It’s slow and expensive and doesn’t scale. The real answer is an alternative that relies on a centralised provider - or set of them - who use traditional databases and the like, but do things in a modern efficient way and don’t charge the same fees as the current card providers do.

> It’s slow and expensive and doesn’t scale.

This is 2020 speak. In 2026, crypto scales and its extremely cheap. it costs less than a hundredth of a cent to do a transfer today.

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

#287

Post by montenegrohugo »

gwbas1c wrote: post #129
montenegrohugo wrote: post #112

Some light self-promotion but also longer term thoughts: A large part of the promise of crypto and stablecoins was to displace Visa and Mastercard rent-seeking. This didn't seem to happen. Most modern neobanks, our own included ( https://peanut.me ), actually seem to EMBRACE Visa and Mastercard. Almost all offer an actual Fiat card within their app, instead of boldly saying "No, pay with crypto, the future of money!"…

The problem is that bitcoin (and similar) are so computationally intense to run, that the transaction cost is much higher than Visa's. Furthermore, a currency needs a government (or similar kind of body) to manage its stability, by printing (and buying) money. Otherwise, we'll see wide fluctuations in value like what happens with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not suited for payments. Bitcoiners use lightning.

But to be clear, all payment innovations in crypto happen on EVMs and L2s. And in 2026, stuff is extremely scaleable and computationally cheap.

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

#289

Post by CaptainNegative »

8note wrote: post #259
skybrian wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming they pay their credit card bill themselves, it's effectively a volume discount for big spenders (though that "volume" goes to multiple vendors). The argument that the money "comes from" other customers is sort of like claiming that when you "save money" by buying things on sale, the money comes from other customers who paid full price. Actually you aren't "saving money" at all; you're spending money. Similar…

ok, but what about for equivalent spenders? one cash, one credit? the credit payer is clearly paying less, with the difference paid by increased prices overall. That is the cash purchaser paying the credit one

That is the cash purchaser paying the retailer more than they need to. There's no conservation law stating that store revenue is a constant and missed revenue from one customer must be made up for by another, nor that every additional operating cost must be directly pushed onto customers.

Similarly, we do not say that October shoppers transfer wealth to Black Friday shoppers, even though the only tangible difference from your scenario is an irrelevant temporal one.

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

#290

Post by maelito »

Faaak wrote: post #181
maelito wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus fixed fees. I don't want to put responsability on anyone, I don't know who takes what in the chain, but I see the fees in practice. I took the cheapest PSP I could find in Europe... Stripe is way more expensive, taking 25 cents of fixed fee !

Which PSP did you choose finally?

https://stancer.com.

Simple Rest API, with Redoc https://docs.stancer.com/api/redoc.html.

Post reply on HN