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Ask HN: Isn't it sad that till this day we pay credit card fees per transaction?
I wish there was an online only bank where you could deposit money, and use their oauth2 like process to pay online anywhere. at no cost to seller or buyer.
The company would make money by cash on hand and investing some of it, (most people would have lot of cash left over in their accounts for long periods of time), and to make it even simpler the bank didn't have to pay .002 cent in interest every month.
Paypal could have been the it, but they charge just like credit cards, and suck more than a bank would.
- smt88 8y agoIn the US (and possibly EU), it's extremely expensive to become a bank -- even an online-only one. There are huge regulatory hurdles, even if you're just a money transmitter (like Venmo was when it launched). How would the service you're describing make up its costs? The fact is that infrastructure costs a lot to build, and it makes sense to charge people only when they use that infrastructure.
- techsin101 8y agogenerates interest off of unused cash? use unused cash for low risk investments?
- damm 8y agoBecause in the end it's all about making money off of people trying to buy things. Sure you could say the cost is justified to run the credit card network and keep it secure. I hope they really do.
- techsin101 8y agothat's fine but 3rd parties in middle contribute nothing. 30cent + 3% is a LOT and many parties take their cut, as if they're transferring real bundles of cash. 3% doesn't come from profit but total reveneue. Say you were a company and made 50 million dollars revenue. then almost $2 million right of the back goes to 3rd parties who didn't contribute to product at all. Just exchange of money caused this. Truly sad in world where you can stream TB of video live to millions of people, sending information hey TRANSFER $50 FROM ACCOUNT A TO B, is costing that.