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Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

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Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#271

Post by godelski »

ramraj07 wrote: post #54
godelski wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nationalize a universal payment interface like india did > a very corrupt, bureaucratic place with billions of people did it. You're not making a great sell here... you're just saying that this is a thing that a corrupt country does and therefor others should.

I said it’s something even a corrupt country was able to do that is universally loved and accepted. The fact that the US isn’t able to do it suggests it’s in someways far more corrupt than even India.

> I said it’s something even a corrupt country was able to do that is universally loved and accepted.

I still don't understand why this is a convincing argument. As an example, many countries with dictatorships have people that love and support the dictator (no matter how cruel they are). Dictators will also try to make this look universal.

This isn't a comment on the banking system (or even India), this is a comment on your argument. You're trying to convince others that a thing is good by connecting it with corruption. For me, this just doesn't follow.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#272

Post by qwytw »

mrguyorama wrote: post #264
qwytw wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> personally do not understand how it can be convenient It can be very convenient for retailers since sales can vary in different counties let alone states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat... just try to imagine what a mess it would be if any advertisement, price sticker etc. would have to show the full price.

It wouldn't be difficult at all. Price stickers are printed/managed in store often enough. Any company that allows you to purchase online already had to deal with differing sales tax, and everything is owned by like one company right now anyway so they already have systems in place to deal with differing tax rules in different states.

But it's not just states. In California (and I guess many other places) towns in the same country can have different tax rates. Sure price stickers is not an unsolvable issue but advertising prices including tax publicaclly would be almost impossible.

> everything is owned by like one company right now anyway so they already have systems in place to deal with differing tax rules in different states.

Yeah I agree it would generally be a much higher burden for small businesses than for Amazon.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#273

Post by qwytw »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #266
qwytw wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> personally do not understand how it can be convenient It can be very convenient for retailers since sales can vary in different counties let alone states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat... just try to imagine what a mess it would be if any advertisement, price sticker etc. would have to show the full price.

I see it as a mess in the tax system being projected to customers. I do not understand the choice of taxpayers to have such system.

Well local jurisdictions are funded by sales taxes they themselves set. You live in a tourist town? Well higher sales tax results in more funding for local services and possibly lower property taxes and you could just drive to the next town if you want to save the 1-2%. What's not to like?

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#274

Post by laratied »

sumedh wrote: post #204
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not objecting to credit cards and promoting cash instead -- I'll happily support a total cash ban (quite an unpopular opinion around these circles, I believe, but that's a story for another time). I'm objecting to the cost of 2-300bps on credit cards, when it is trivially shown that they can be 30-50bps (Alipay, EU caps, etc) and everything will work just fine, just without 2% cashback.

> I'll happily support a total cash ban So if you say something negative about the govt and the govt bans your access to e payments, would you still support that?

It will never happen anyway.

We are never going to ban cash in the US because government officials need the anonymity of cash just as much if not more than your local drug dealer.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#275

Post by polski-g »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #43
mdasen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm weary of government intervention in capping prices, but I'm not sure what's the alternative here Instead of capping prices, you could simply require any fees to be paid by the cardholder. Combine that with a standard for payment processing so that lots of companies could compete for payment processing and fees would drop really fast. If someone is using a POS terminal like Toast or Square, it should be trivial…

You won’t sell this idea in Europe. Here the price tag for anything is the full amount you pay - including all commissions and taxes. People use debit cards, the paid amount is immediately deducted from bank account. If customers are forced to calculate how much they actually will spend on each transaction, they will instantly switch back to cash.

The fee could be done annually from the credit card company itself. (ie: You made 300 transactions this year, that is $300).

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#276

Post by ivan_gammel »

qwytw wrote: post #273
ivan_gammel wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as a mess in the tax system being projected to customers. I do not understand the choice of taxpayers to have such system.

Well local jurisdictions are funded by sales taxes they themselves set. You live in a tourist town? Well higher sales tax results in more funding for local services and possibly lower property taxes and you could just drive to the next town if you want to save the 1-2%. What's not to like?

There’s so much wrong with this, that I don’t know where to start. So let’s start with the elephant in the room: driving to next town to buy something that is available locally is generally a red flag of market economy failure, because it is incredibly inefficient and environmentally harmful.

Then there’s an incentive to produce higher inequality: high sales tax affects mostly poor, while low property tax usually benefits rich. Poor people are usually underrepresented in democratic institutions, so it would not be surprising if inverse redistribution would be a frequent problem.

Finally, local tax as a way to fund communities is not the only alternative and relying on it would mean that some communities will never get out of financial trouble. Tourist towns are minority, after all. Other countries just keep some of the collected VAT locally and redistribute excesses from richer to poorer communities through federal transfers (German solidarity tax did exactly that, for example).

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#277

Post by Broken_Hippo »

computing wrote: post #260
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Norway. There is no real way to avoid knowing what the VAT on things are. I have to pay it if I order from Amazon or Etsy, for example. If I order from the US, I pay later. Every sales receipt has the VAT right on the receipt. I can see it every single time. If I order from inside the country, I can see it before I pay. It isn't hidden. It isn't secret. It wasn't even secret to an immigrant that didn't yet und…

I think this comes down to you being Norwegian (ie getting good quality govt services in exchange for your taxes). Now imagine being Greek. If folks realised they're paying 22.5% to the govt on top of everything they purchase... they wouldn't be very happy.

Oh, I'm not Norwegian. I'm American, I just moved here some years ago. Considering everything, I'm probably paying fewer total taxes than I did in the US - if anything, because I'm getting stuff like healthcare for my tax money now.

Greece is in the EU, which means they are paying at least 15% VAT on most stuff, assuming everyone is paying their taxes (which might or might not be). Trust me, even being built into the cost, everyone knows how much they are paying in taxes on goods. Greek folks aren't unintelligent. This sort of tax isn't a secret any more than sales tax was in the US.

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#278

Post by [deleted] »

robertlagrant wrote: post #237
Symbiote wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debit cards are 48% of all payments in the UK, and credit cards 8%. Cash is 15%, the rest are various types of bank transfer. Note this is all transactions, online and in-person, including things like subscription renewals. (How can a debit card be cloned, anyway? I'm not aware of any case of this, only a possible problem in the USA where data is 'cloned' onto a magstripe card.) https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/system/fi…

Accordingly to ukfinance.org[0] 13% of card transactions are CC and the rest are debit. I'm surprised it's that high for CC, but still, I think it's reasonable to say a lot of people use them. Er yes, you're right about debit card cloning I think. I'll retract that one :) However if purchase something that doesn't work your CC company is jointly liable (crazily enough) and if your card details leak you have protectio…

[deleted]

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#279

Post by adrr »

usernew wrote: post #96
adrr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is more expensive to take as a payment method than interchange unless you’re cheating on taxes.

This is a perpetuated lie based on half-information. It is technically correct. If you are comparing a place that only takes cash, and a place that only takes plastic. This place does not exist. This thing exists, is called a vending machine, and it is indeed cheaper for my bag of chips to be cashless. If a business takes both cash and cards, allowing cards In Addition to already taking cash, does not cost more. It c…

Multiple restaurants around me only take card. Also airlines. I work for a dtc company and we would go cashless at our stores unless we are forced to by mall management. Cash is expensive to handle.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/04/15/cashless-res...

Re: Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1%

#280

Post by sumedh »

cj wrote: post #244
sumedh wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How should payment processing be funded if not per transaction? reply Taxes? Do you pay a toll to use each and every road for your car? Do something like what India has done.

The "road toll" may not be the best example. At least in New York, you pay a toll every time you cross most bridges and every time you enter/exit a thruway (aka "freeway" in other parts of the country)

So in New York do you have to pay a toll for each and every road, if not then its a good example.
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