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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

#151

Post by overfeed »

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…

> credit cards are giving you a revolving loan, there's risk it will not be repaid, and that risk ends up reflected in processing fees

Neither Visa nor MasterCard are loaning customers their money. It's the European banks that hold the bulk of the risk for European credit card transactions.

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

#152

Post by Jyaif »

rolandog wrote: post #18
Jyaif wrote: post #9

> National pride and competing banking interests repeatedly sabotaged attempts at unification. That's exactly the problem. Several actors have won the market of their country, but only of their country. Will Trump be enough to make the europeans realize that they need to work together, and that an italian win is just as good as a german win?

But more importantly, that walled gardens should be abolished and portability and compatibility of user accounts should be enshrined into law and protected at all costs.

That's a great point. With more open systems there can be multiple winners, instead of a single winner that takes all.

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

#153

Post by cmurf »

eastbayjake wrote: post #109
functionmouse wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shouldn't have to pay for your usury economy if I'm using cash. If that were really the issue, these companies would have no problems with businesses charging different prices or offering discounts for cash.

The networks allow cash discounts if it's posted clearly and the customer has an option to use a different payment method -- you see this on every gas station sign alongside every highway in America. (What's _not_ permitted is adding a secret surcharge or item mark-up for credit card payments)

Surcharges are permitted in some states.

Colorado law recently changed permitting merchants to pass on the actual cost of processing, except for cash, check and debit payments.

https://colorado.public.law/statutes/crs_5-2-212

This law overrides any prior contractual agreements with banks/processing companies that prohibit surcharges. This is previously how MasterCard and VISA coerced merchants into absorbing the processing fee, by contractually requiring credit same as cash pricing.

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

#154

Post by lysace »

miohtama wrote: post #30

This is the fourth attempt in two decades. Here is the short history of earlier attempts: https://x.com/moo9000/status/2006304163404128289 The difference this time is that Digital Euro is forced by ECB and control (and deposits) are taken away from banks.

Let's be real: The difference this time is the open hostility from the US towards Europe.

It's now been about a month since a White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor openly talked about/advocated for taking Greenland by force. POTUS was vague for a while.

Northern European nations sent like a hundred military officers to Greenland. POTUS then threatened those nations with, wait for it, tariffs.

Then the markets crashed and Rutte/Nato provided a face-saving de-escalation path.

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

#155

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

mentalgear wrote: post #35

Would be nice of the EU to provide a digital payment service quasi free of charge - without commercial provider's typical predatory fees and other costs. And don't counter with "privacy" .. it's not like all the American companies already have to provide backend access to their data to the NSA and other 3 letter agencies.

The problem with these is always who pays for fraud.

With credit cards, they actually claw that money back from the merchant, and then if the merchant can't pay they just eat it themselves.

So the merchant has to work in fraud rates into their pricing, and the credit card company has to work in fraud rates that the merchant can't cover into their rates.

It always seemed toxic it to me that the merchants are the one's responsible, despite the fact that they easily have the least power to do anything about it. But the ease of payment processing, and the number of people who just won't buy it if they can't use a card, outweighs dealing with fraud I guess.

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

#156

Post by consp »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #101
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…

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.

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

#157

Post by x3ro »

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…

> 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 it will not be repaid, and that risk ends up reflected in processing fees

This is really much less of a thing in Europe, or at the very least in Germany and Spain. Mostly it's the overdraft from banks that you can use as what you call a revolving loan. Most of the visa and mastercards I've had in my life simply debit from my main account.

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

#158

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#159

Post by haspok »

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…

> credit cards are giving you a revolving loan

I'm confused - is it not the issuing bank that gives you the loan, and the credit card company just provides the infrastructure?

Btw. having an overdraft limit of a few hundred Euros is quite typical for those liquidity issues. You don't need a credit card for that.

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

#160

Post by lmz »

miroljub wrote: post #34
hnfong wrote: post #20

Even putting aside issue of geopolitics, it's quite baffling to me that every country besides China and Russia are paying ~0.2% "sales tax" to corporate America.

No every, you just don't know it ;) There was a recent case of one Serbian company being sanctioned by the USA, and Visa and Master refused to process payments. No big deal, since even a small country like Serbia has its payment system called Dina that kept the company afloat. There's not a single technical reason for bigger and richer countries to develop their own card payment system. It's not rocket science. The o…

France has CB. Germany has girocard. The entire problem is that these are national and not interoperable across the EU.
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