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The second sentence corrects the sensational headline: "the small but growing number of Swedes anxious about their country’s rush to embrace a cash-free society

The second sentence corrects the sensational headline: "the small but growing number of Swedes anxious about their country’s rush to embrace a cash-free society." It must be very small. The only person I've ever heard complain about it is... myself. Not for the reasons this article gives, though. I'm more upset about Visa and Mastercard skimming 1% of profit off of the entire country's retail commerce. Maybe if they weren't simultaneously terrible, but they also have unimaginably bad fraud detection, and push their own fraud problems onto local businesses.

87812487 9y ago
I think it is a interesting question. Before using a payment gateway, what is the cost of using cash? It would be covered by tax. If the whole society is abandoning cash, it is effectively meant raising sales tax by X%, where X is transaction cost of each payment. A cashless country should just use the tax money on cash printing factories to cover the cost of transaction.
imartin2k 9y ago
I see your point, but I have a slight correction: The EU has regulated the interchange fee, which is since then capped at "0.2% of the transaction value for Visa and Mastercard consumer debit cards" and "0.3% of the transaction value for Visa and Mastercard consumer credit cards." (https://www.adyen.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-eu-interchange-cap https://www.adyen.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-eu...) However, I am not a payment expert, so there might be an additional fee imposed by the credit card networks which I am not aware of? This percentage does seem a bit more reasonable for the services offered by Visa and Mastercard, in my eyes.
- mrmekon 9y ago
  Well, true, that's somewhat better. But it's the principle of a privately-owned monopoly or oligopoly skimming profits off of a nation's economy that bothers me, not the absolute amount. As the other response to my comment said, cash itself has an overhead cost, too. But that cost is paid to our government at break-even cost, instead of to a private company for profit. If Visa and Mastercard had plenty of competition, it wouldn't be so bad. Swish is nice to have, despite its problems. Maybe we'll get there.
  - imartin2k 9y ago
    Yeah I tried to find the rates that Swish charges to businesses but didn't find them (although didn't look to thoroughly either). But can it really be even below the 0,2% of cap for debit cards?
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      The rates for Danish MobilePay were easy to find [1], and are flat, under 30-75 ears [2] depending on volume. I'd guess that's around 0.5-1%, but I don't have much idea. [1] https://mobilepay.dk/da-dk/erhverv/Pages/mobilepay-myshop.aspx https://mobilepay.dk/da-dk/erhverv/Pages/mobilepay-myshop.as... [2] Well, I say "crowns" in English
    - Annorax 9y ago
      Swish is 1 to 2 SEK (2 being the list price that can be negotiated) per transaction. Then swish has a daily cap of payments you as user can do of 150k SEK (system limit, not a soft cap that the user can remove).
      - StudentStuff 9y ago
        That is an extremely low limit for any noteworthy business, equating to $500k USD a month total. Most small grocers here in Seattle do more than that in credit/debit monthly.
        kungtotte 8y ago
        The Swish limit is for outbound payments, not total transactions. So a grocer that accepts Swish payments will in no way be hindered by this limit, unless they for some ungodly reason are also swishing money back to customers.
- AnssiH 9y ago
  The pricing of the most common merchant service provider (Nets) in Finland is 0.31% for EU VISA/MC debit cards (max 0.75 EUR per transaction) and 0.90% for EU consumer VISA/MC credit cards. For reference, approx. 80% of card transactions are debit here. Magstripe transactions, non-EU cards, and non-consumer credit cards have higher rates. Could be similar in Sweden.
varjag 9y ago
Norway sidestepped this with nationwide BankAxept piggybacking on Visa, wonder why Sweden didn't.

87812487 9y ago

I think it is a interesting question. Before using a payment gateway, what is the cost of using cash? It would be covered by tax. If the whole society is abandoning cash, it is effectively meant raising sales tax by X%, where X is transaction cost of each payment. A cashless country should just use the tax money on cash printing factories to cover the cost of transaction.

imartin2k 9y ago

I see your point, but I have a slight correction: The EU has regulated the interchange fee, which is since then capped at "0.2% of the transaction value for Visa and Mastercard consumer debit cards" and "0.3% of the transaction value for Visa and Mastercard consumer credit cards." (https://www.adyen.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-eu-interchange-cap https://www.adyen.com/blog/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-eu...) However, I am not a payment expert, so there might be an additional fee imposed by the credit card networks which I am not aware of? This percentage does seem a bit more reasonable for the services offered by Visa and Mastercard, in my eyes.

mrmekon 9y ago
Well, true, that's somewhat better. But it's the principle of a privately-owned monopoly or oligopoly skimming profits off of a nation's economy that bothers me, not the absolute amount. As the other response to my comment said, cash itself has an overhead cost, too. But that cost is paid to our government at break-even cost, instead of to a private company for profit. If Visa and Mastercard had plenty of competition, it wouldn't be so bad. Swish is nice to have, despite its problems. Maybe we'll get there.
- imartin2k 9y ago
  Yeah I tried to find the rates that Swish charges to businesses but didn't find them (although didn't look to thoroughly either). But can it really be even below the 0,2% of cap for debit cards?
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    The rates for Danish MobilePay were easy to find [1], and are flat, under 30-75 ears [2] depending on volume. I'd guess that's around 0.5-1%, but I don't have much idea. [1] https://mobilepay.dk/da-dk/erhverv/Pages/mobilepay-myshop.aspx https://mobilepay.dk/da-dk/erhverv/Pages/mobilepay-myshop.as... [2] Well, I say "crowns" in English
  - Annorax 9y ago
    Swish is 1 to 2 SEK (2 being the list price that can be negotiated) per transaction. Then swish has a daily cap of payments you as user can do of 150k SEK (system limit, not a soft cap that the user can remove).
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      That is an extremely low limit for any noteworthy business, equating to $500k USD a month total. Most small grocers here in Seattle do more than that in credit/debit monthly.
      - kungtotte 8y ago
        The Swish limit is for outbound payments, not total transactions. So a grocer that accepts Swish payments will in no way be hindered by this limit, unless they for some ungodly reason are also swishing money back to customers.
AnssiH 9y ago
The pricing of the most common merchant service provider (Nets) in Finland is 0.31% for EU VISA/MC debit cards (max 0.75 EUR per transaction) and 0.90% for EU consumer VISA/MC credit cards. For reference, approx. 80% of card transactions are debit here. Magstripe transactions, non-EU cards, and non-consumer credit cards have higher rates. Could be similar in Sweden.

varjag 9y ago

Norway sidestepped this with nationwide BankAxept piggybacking on Visa, wonder why Sweden didn't.