Visa and Mastercard agree to lower average credit card interchange fee below 1% • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by throwaway426079 » Sun, May 21, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

rjmunro wrote: post #145

throwaway426079 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the UK and I have had (still have) rewards on MC, Visa and Amex. This was the case when we were still in the EU as well.

Amex doesn't count - they run their own system end to end and charge retailers stupidly high fees. That's why most retailers don't take them. As for rewards on MC and Visa, which card are you on? In my experience, either the rewards are very small, or they are for specific retailers only, where the Bank has done a deal directly with the merchant. Occasionally they are a loss leader for the bank, working on the princi…

All the rewards I've ever had were points or cashback at or below 2% of spend. These are/were all zero annual fee cards - there might be more rewards at higher tiers.

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

#302

Post by uf00lme » Sun, May 21, 2023, 11:48 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #190

uf00lme wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amex is a different model, their customers are card holders and not businesses. In their view of the world businesses must pay to access their customers. It will be interesting to see Google or Apple's long term play in this market, I would love it if they started providing banking services. Just so it interrupts the currently market where the middle men provide little to no real value to the general public.

Amex has credit cards with no annual fees, they have the same incentives as other networks and issuers.

Their no fee cards are not their primary card base. As a vertical provider, they simply charge merchants more, and use that money to look after their customers more so than other majors. In general try to do a charge back with Amex vs other majors and watch what happens. Amex usually screws merchants more much than other payers, at least in APAC and EMEA. I don’t know American markets as much but I assume the model holds true.

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

#303

Post by rjmunro » Tue, May 23, 2023, 3:43 PM UTC

erincandescent wrote: post #159

rjmunro wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. It was one of the first "Brexit freedoms" the government took advantage of. That's why Amazon had a spat with Visa: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/visa-mastercard-agree-lower-averag... The article is wrong here.

The UK didn't scrap the Interchange Fees Regulation; but as a matter of law there became two separate IFRs, one covering the EEA-cards-in-EEA and one covering UK-cards-in-UK (To put it bluntly, a big amendment was automatically applied to most UK laws on exit day replacing EU & EEA with UK; and of course in the EU the definition of both of those words changed)

So why did Amazon threaten to stop taking Visa cards? Do they not have a UK bank account?

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

#304

Post by jiggywiggy » Wed, May 24, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #192

jiggywiggy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still don't understand why US is so obsessed with credit cards. Debit is much more easy and straight forward, it's the standard in EU. Most of us only have cc to purchase stuff from US sites. Why such a complicated solution? Looks like a bank product.

Debit is actually terrible and I've never used it. If there is an error, it your money that is gone until it's fixed. Slightly related, I never allow direct debit from my bank account for things like utilities. It's blanket permission to take money they think they are owed. A friend had a problem with his electricity, the public utility came out, said the meter was tampered with, replaced it and charged him $1000 rig…

Not true. It depends on how you pay. Most automatislc payments in EU are actually SEPA Payments and are much easier to revert. One click in your bank app or online, within 3 months no arguing.