8 ms·

In Denmark we have a national payment system called Dankort. All issued Visa cards also work as Dankort. Transaction fees on Dankort is one tenth of visa, and a

In Denmark we have a national payment system called Dankort. All issued Visa cards also work as Dankort. Transaction fees on Dankort is one tenth of visa, and all payment terminals default to Dankort. This saves Danish retail a lot of money while still ensuring they we can buy stuff online and when traveling using visa.

kasey_junk 8y ago
To be clear that’s due to laws in Denmark that require its acceptance and granting it a particular monopoly status? I’d be curious what the issue rate between the Dankort & the Kroger Plus Card. It’s conceivable that Kroger has the market heft to do with selling power what Denmark did with law. As context Kroger employees about the same number of people as 1/10th of Denmark though I have no idea how that translates to ability to change card usage.
- adventured 8y ago
  You can't safely inconvenience all your customers even if you're at Kroger's scale. Walmart is extremely eager to kill you if you're Kroger, to gain market share in groceries. It leaves no safe opening to upset a large share of your customers: many will go across the street to Walmart.
  - Marsymars 8y ago
    Walmart has had similar spates in the past. They stopped accepting Visa at various Canadian stores last year when negotiating rates with Visa.
- sitharus 8y ago
  In New Zealand we have a similar network, EFTPOS. It’s not mandated by law and business could (but don’t) opt to only accept credit cards. However since it has no per-transaction fees for either party in most cases (some low-volume personal and business accounts have per-transaction fees) it’s reached near total market penetration. To be clear it’s not a single network, there are two networks that fully interoperate. Unfortunately we don’t have any regulation on credit card fees, so both credit cards go up to 2% and debit cards take over 1%. This has made the banks (who own the largest EFTPOS provider) reluctant to upgrade the system to support contactless and online transactions, both of which are possible with the technology.
- clan 8y ago
  Acceptance not required by law and no mandated monopoly. The card was introduced in 1983 and the law which helped the card stated that they could not charge any transaction fees to the consumer. It became popular with the consumers because there is no difference between cash and the debit card. It was popular with retail because it was cheap to handle. Consumers would typically get the card for free from the bank. If you wanted it to work as a VISA card abroad as well - then you would typically pay $31/year. Points, percentage, milage and whatnot are virtually unknown. Many retailers opted only to accept this card because the international cards where more expensive (but available!). Unfortunately regulations are going in the wrong direction. The banks have now gotten their saving by handling less cash - so now they're pushing for more fees. A brilliant construction which could have been a great stepping stone for a true cashless society now slowly turns into a "same same". It goes to tell - never let liberals near infrastructure.
  - kasey_junk 8y ago
    Who pays for the processing equipment? Clearing? Collection? The banks were running it as a loss leader?
    - clan 8y ago
      Retailers. There where agreements in place to ensure reasonable costs. This made it cheap to use. And it was so popular it surely did make a profit. Then the big banks realized they where helping the smaller banks and even more profit could be made by themselves. Hence a lot of lobbying for a "liberal" market. We still have the card. But slightly more expensive. Not sure for how long. I do not look forward to a future with global players setting the rules on "market" terms.
seszett 8y ago
I think most countries have that. CB in France, Interac in Canada, Bancontact in Belgium, etc. But that concept sounds like it wouldn't fare well in the US.
- avip 8y ago
  Interac is for debit transactions only.
  - seszett 8y ago
    As are all the national payment networks. Interac is a bit different from the others though because I don't think cards usually support both Interac and Visa/Mastercard, while in the European systems they usually do both, with terminals defaulting to the national system and using Visa/Mastercard if necessary.
  - PeterisP 8y ago
    Outside of north america and UK the line between credit and debit is much more muddled - you may have "debit cards" attached to a current account that has a significant overdraft limit; you may have "credit cards" that have 0 credit limit and must be prepaid; and there's no major practical difference and no legal differences (unlike, say, USA).
- alkonaut 8y ago
  Because anything reaching the courts that would benefit individuals at the expense of some big industry, seems to always end up with consumers getting the short end of the stick. That’s at the core of so many US issues.
Nursie 8y ago
In the EU transaction fees are capped at 0.3% anyway, by law.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  ... plus fees.
eksemplar 8y ago
This isn’t the full picture. It’s true that we have a national payment system called Dankort, but I think it’s debatable whether or not it’s saving retail money and it’s certainly possible to get a VISA card that isn’t tied to your Dankort. There are pros and cons to every system. The Dankort is very consumer friendly, and it’s cheaper than credit cards, but it’s not cheaper than debit cards and the Dankort itself isn’t really a true credit card nor is it a debit card. The fees are low because they are regulated by legislation, but at the same time, the fees are making the company that currently owns the bid to issue and control the Dankort a lot of money from their monopoly. One of the major downsides is actually the cost to retail. Accepting Dankort transaction is actually expensive, costing a store 20.000dkr a year per terminal. Which is why kost smaller retailers have turned to the mobile pay app. The major upside is that a Dankort works everywhere that isn’t a tiny/indie store, and that it had relative low fees for consumers. Of course Denmark being a tiny country of 5.5 million people and no real geographical challenges as far as size go, helps a lot in that regard.

kasey_junk 8y ago

To be clear that’s due to laws in Denmark that require its acceptance and granting it a particular monopoly status? I’d be curious what the issue rate between the Dankort & the Kroger Plus Card. It’s conceivable that Kroger has the market heft to do with selling power what Denmark did with law. As context Kroger employees about the same number of people as 1/10th of Denmark though I have no idea how that translates to ability to change card usage.

adventured 8y ago
You can't safely inconvenience all your customers even if you're at Kroger's scale. Walmart is extremely eager to kill you if you're Kroger, to gain market share in groceries. It leaves no safe opening to upset a large share of your customers: many will go across the street to Walmart.
- Marsymars 8y ago
  Walmart has had similar spates in the past. They stopped accepting Visa at various Canadian stores last year when negotiating rates with Visa.
sitharus 8y ago
In New Zealand we have a similar network, EFTPOS. It’s not mandated by law and business could (but don’t) opt to only accept credit cards. However since it has no per-transaction fees for either party in most cases (some low-volume personal and business accounts have per-transaction fees) it’s reached near total market penetration. To be clear it’s not a single network, there are two networks that fully interoperate. Unfortunately we don’t have any regulation on credit card fees, so both credit cards go up to 2% and debit cards take over 1%. This has made the banks (who own the largest EFTPOS provider) reluctant to upgrade the system to support contactless and online transactions, both of which are possible with the technology.
clan 8y ago
Acceptance not required by law and no mandated monopoly. The card was introduced in 1983 and the law which helped the card stated that they could not charge any transaction fees to the consumer. It became popular with the consumers because there is no difference between cash and the debit card. It was popular with retail because it was cheap to handle. Consumers would typically get the card for free from the bank. If you wanted it to work as a VISA card abroad as well - then you would typically pay $31/year. Points, percentage, milage and whatnot are virtually unknown. Many retailers opted only to accept this card because the international cards where more expensive (but available!). Unfortunately regulations are going in the wrong direction. The banks have now gotten their saving by handling less cash - so now they're pushing for more fees. A brilliant construction which could have been a great stepping stone for a true cashless society now slowly turns into a "same same". It goes to tell - never let liberals near infrastructure.
- kasey_junk 8y ago
  Who pays for the processing equipment? Clearing? Collection? The banks were running it as a loss leader?
  - clan 8y ago
    Retailers. There where agreements in place to ensure reasonable costs. This made it cheap to use. And it was so popular it surely did make a profit. Then the big banks realized they where helping the smaller banks and even more profit could be made by themselves. Hence a lot of lobbying for a "liberal" market. We still have the card. But slightly more expensive. Not sure for how long. I do not look forward to a future with global players setting the rules on "market" terms.

seszett 8y ago

I think most countries have that. CB in France, Interac in Canada, Bancontact in Belgium, etc. But that concept sounds like it wouldn't fare well in the US.

avip 8y ago
Interac is for debit transactions only.
- seszett 8y ago
  As are all the national payment networks. Interac is a bit different from the others though because I don't think cards usually support both Interac and Visa/Mastercard, while in the European systems they usually do both, with terminals defaulting to the national system and using Visa/Mastercard if necessary.
- PeterisP 8y ago
  Outside of north america and UK the line between credit and debit is much more muddled - you may have "debit cards" attached to a current account that has a significant overdraft limit; you may have "credit cards" that have 0 credit limit and must be prepaid; and there's no major practical difference and no legal differences (unlike, say, USA).
alkonaut 8y ago
Because anything reaching the courts that would benefit individuals at the expense of some big industry, seems to always end up with consumers getting the short end of the stick. That’s at the core of so many US issues.

Nursie 8y ago

In the EU transaction fees are capped at 0.3% anyway, by law.

IshKebab 8y ago
... plus fees.

eksemplar 8y ago

This isn’t the full picture. It’s true that we have a national payment system called Dankort, but I think it’s debatable whether or not it’s saving retail money and it’s certainly possible to get a VISA card that isn’t tied to your Dankort. There are pros and cons to every system. The Dankort is very consumer friendly, and it’s cheaper than credit cards, but it’s not cheaper than debit cards and the Dankort itself isn’t really a true credit card nor is it a debit card. The fees are low because they are regulated by legislation, but at the same time, the fees are making the company that currently owns the bid to issue and control the Dankort a lot of money from their monopoly. One of the major downsides is actually the cost to retail. Accepting Dankort transaction is actually expensive, costing a store 20.000dkr a year per terminal. Which is why kost smaller retailers have turned to the mobile pay app. The major upside is that a Dankort works everywhere that isn’t a tiny/indie store, and that it had relative low fees for consumers. Of course Denmark being a tiny country of 5.5 million people and no real geographical challenges as far as size go, helps a lot in that regard.