81–90 of 237 posts
That’s very interesting. Stripe is so greedy and dishonest.
> premium cards [are] commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard [and attract more expensive fees, even compared to Amex] Does anyone know more about that? Why are they more expensive? Is there a different underlying cost structure, or simply price discrimination by some intermediary? There's more information on "premium cards" here[0], but it doesn't explain the price difference or why a…
Because they give more benefits (insurance, lounge access, cashback etc...) and someone has to pay for this (i.e. the merchants). For example R̶e̶v̶o̶l̶u̶t̶ ̶M̶e̶t̶a̶l̶ premium cards and corporate cards which offers benefits such as lounge access to pay-to-use lounges, travel insurance, cashback etc.. are mostly designed by the schemes in parternship with the issuing banks. Also note that mostly in the US and Europe…
To quote Hanlon’s razor “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Having been involved in these conversations, I can tell you with some confidence, that banks are far more worried about being unable to deliver the technical work on time, than they’re worrying about interchange.
There will be fees to pay for OpenBanking Variable Recurring Payments, it’s not going to be free for merchants to use. Which makes sense, contrary to popular opinion, running a bank account, and transacting, costs quite a bit of money. Every Faster Payment you send costs your bank a couple of pennies, not much on an individual level, but it sure adds up.
I have been pondering transaction costs lately. Seems like this is an area where intervention could have massive impact: these costs are effectively a tax that incurs deadweight loss so according to prevailing economic theory if we can reduce it the whole economy should be catalysed. IIUC governments already introduce price caps for certain elements of this market but I think we could be doing more? Like mandating in…
I wish those transaction cost would be made visible. Imo the seller should not care which card the client use, if it's more expensive to use a "premium" card then it should be made visible to the client and he should be the one to pay the overhead.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In theory, they can't. But no one is enforcing it because there is a plan to change the law.
No. Technically it's illegal to provide such service, not receive it. Fun fact, this very website is not GDPR compliant. I've never ever seen a cookie notice on HN, which is legally required. Of course, none of this is relevant, because AFAIK HN has no physical presence in the EU, but still, this site is not GDPR compliant, which just outlines how stupid GDPR actually is.
Also, the cookie notice is not GDPR it's a separate law. And if you only use functional cookies such as login cookies no notice is required.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they give more benefits (insurance, lounge access, cashback etc...) and someone has to pay for this (i.e. the merchants). For example R̶e̶v̶o̶l̶u̶t̶ ̶M̶e̶t̶a̶l̶ premium cards and corporate cards which offers benefits such as lounge access to pay-to-use lounges, travel insurance, cashback etc.. are mostly designed by the schemes in parternship with the issuing banks. Also note that mostly in the US and Europe…
> The banks have been lobbying to delay most of the UX improvements for the users because they just make too much money as an issuer to get interchange. To quote Hanlon’s razor “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Having been involved in these conversations, I can tell you with some confidence, that banks are far more worried about being unable to deliver the technical work on…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Technically it's illegal to provide such service, not receive it. Fun fact, this very website is not GDPR compliant. I've never ever seen a cookie notice on HN, which is legally required. Of course, none of this is relevant, because AFAIK HN has no physical presence in the EU, but still, this site is not GDPR compliant, which just outlines how stupid GDPR actually is.
Cookie notices are required if you for example use them to pass data to third parties. A login cookie that is just for auth is not that. It is specifically requested by the user and implies that the user's data is managed on that site and can be evicted. Same with analytics. The problem is not that you're doing analytics. It's that the user doesn't know that your doing it and that you're passing on that data to a thi…
It says something when traditional banks are basically the same price now and are almost as good in features (and many other card processors are cheaper, especially if eg you stick to a processor in the EU for EU cards) - I'm not sure why anyone would pick Stripe anymore, especially as they have just as many "hidden" costs as others (eg fraud stuff)
on edit: actually serious question, have been away from this area for a while but thinking about making a personal project soon.
> premium cards [are] commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard [and attract more expensive fees, even compared to Amex] Does anyone know more about that? Why are they more expensive? Is there a different underlying cost structure, or simply price discrimination by some intermediary? There's more information on "premium cards" here[0], but it doesn't explain the price difference or why a…
Because they give more benefits (insurance, lounge access, cashback etc...) and someone has to pay for this (i.e. the merchants). For example R̶e̶v̶o̶l̶u̶t̶ ̶M̶e̶t̶a̶l̶ premium cards and corporate cards which offers benefits such as lounge access to pay-to-use lounges, travel insurance, cashback etc.. are mostly designed by the schemes in parternship with the issuing banks. Also note that mostly in the US and Europe…
Right but that’s not a premium card and neither is Amex, so this doesn’t follow
Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.epicompany.eu/ and https://nordicpayments.eu/ instead of Visa/MC
Yup exactly, but you need to take that strategy and apply it beyond europe. For this you need local networks in the US as well for example. Right now, there aren't really any; some crypto based local networks but that's all. But the US is undergoing some serious banking network updates this year and that likely means some new local networks are being built. This idea will look very different by 2024 and maybe even be…
However, the free market approach seems to work for mobile payments solutions such as the extremely popular ones in nordic countries. They have started to build an interoperable and federated network in Europe and beyond. For instance, there's a real demand from businesses that want to let Chinese or Indian tourists pay with AliPay or UPI.
Don't get me wrong, I think DSP is one of the greatest thing the EU has ever done, but it looks like physical cards just need to die before we can see a true competition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The banks have been lobbying to delay most of the UX improvements for the users because they just make too much money as an issuer to get interchange. To quote Hanlon’s razor “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Having been involved in these conversations, I can tell you with some confidence, that banks are far more worried about being unable to deliver the technical work on…
Having been in some of the same conversations, although I'm a big believer in Hanlon's razor, if someone suggests that for an OpenBanking payment the "authentication" should be the bank calling the user and having them listend to a 45 second message to then key in a confirmation code it's no longer stupidity, it's creating artificial barriers. The same bank can perfectly do quicker ACS with OTP or tap to confirm usin…
It’s an extremely difficult problem to deal with because there is no dispute mechanism in the faster payment flow, and Faster Payments are not interested in adding one. As a consequence, once the payment is authorise, the moneys gone, and getting back is almost impossible.
Fraudsters have been taking huge advantage of this, and regulators are demanding that banks protect customers from these scams, or eat the cost of reimbursement.
Having worked on this specific problem, I can say that calling the customer for authentication is one of the most effective ways to prevent these scams. The call normally forces the customer to hang up on the scammer, which is incredibly powerful because it removes the primary source of pressure on the customer, and gives them space to think. Most customers then realise they’re being scammed, and stop there.
You may say that there’s other ways of warning customers, like in app notifications etc. Well I’ve tired all that, they’re not effective, regardless of how big, scary and red you make them. Even when tuned so the false positive rate is almost zero, so most customers only every see them when they’re actually about to be scammed, they still don’t work. Reason why they’re not effective, customer mentions what they see to the scammer on the phone, scammer explains it away and pressures the customer to continue.
This isn’t to say there isn’t some better balance, or that the banks aren’t being lazy. But the fraud question is serious one, and a very difficult one to answer. Simply ignoring it when discussing Open Banking is either naive, or intellectually dishonest (I’m not claiming that you’re intellectually dishonest, but there are plenty of people who like to gloss over the fraud issues, or just victim blame).