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Visa and Mastercard near deal with merchants that would change rewards landscape

30 points by josephcsible

by kalleboo

5 subcomments

> Under terms being discussed, Visa and Mastercard would lower credit-card interchange fees, which are often between 2% and 2.5%, by an average of around a tenth of a percentage point over several years, the people said
Meanwhile interchange fees in places like EU and Australia are more like 0.3%
The Visa/Mastercard duopoly really needs to be broken up somehow.
I live in Asia where there is a cambrian explosion of QR-code based payment methods. At many shops you'll see a list of accepted payment methods like this[0], indicating a healthy amount of competition in payments.
[0] https://corporate.fithouse.co.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/...

by bob1029

2 subcomments

I would challenge any retail business to beat the 2.5% rate on their cash transactions once the various transit, security and banking fees have been factored in. Those armored trucks don't work for free.
The US payment networks are also incredibly robust with some fantastical operational guarantees. I cannot recall the last time I couldn't get an online authorization at a merchant terminal. There are rooms of people monitoring these things like a hawk 24/7/365. Imagine being called by your ISP proactively when they detect >.01% packet loss on your line. That was my job for an entire year. Calling banks on the phone in the middle of the night because we think there might be an issue before there actually is an issue. Statistically speaking, this is one of the most certain things in the life of a typical American. Visa alone processes a quarter trillion (10^12) transactions per year. We've got a lot of samples that say the system works really well and might be worth the cost.
You can point to regulation and artificial moats for prohibiting competition, but it's genuinely a difficult problem to solve, even if you can do it purely digital. Trust is the most challenging element. I think moving cash, checks and other paper around is easier in a lot of ways.

by zihotki

1 subcomments

I can't wait till Wero* will be fully rolled out in EU. ECB does a good job of managing financial landscape for payments in the consumer friendly way
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)

by kylehotchkiss

0 subcomment

I can see grocery stores and gas stations declining rewards cards. No big deal.
E-commerce or coffee spot denying them? I’ll shop around for another!

by netsharc

2 subcomments

Man, looking forward to the paying experience also being enshittified.
Actually with my card in Europe it's already happened: any payment purpotedly being done overseas (even if it's in the local currency) has some % surcharge. One time some pop-up store came to my town, and they brought a card machine from their store in France. Charged in my local currency, and my bank charged me more. Luckily I could call them with much annoyance and get it credited back.
From online chatter I've heard that paying for Netflix or some other foreign service induces this charge too.

by kotaKat

1 subcomments

by k310

0 subcomment

Syndicated at MSN.
Archive sites returned a gripe about js and adblockers.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/visa-and-mastercar...

by jamesholden

1 subcomments

"Deal under discussion would lower credit-card interchange fees for merchants, but could make it harder for consumers to use rewards cards at the register"
Surprise! The consumer loses again! It's always somehow benefiting everyone but the consumer. Too much control, not enough regulation. People shouldn't be bilked out of funds by paying to use their own money. We are shouldn't be _forced_ to use these service companies for making payments.