Agreed, I don't think it is a coincidence that here in Finland VISA/MC credit cards don't offer cashback and the merchant fees are much lower than US (Nets offe

Agreed, I don't think it is a coincidence that here in Finland VISA/MC credit cards don't offer cashback and the merchant fees are much lower than US (Nets offers 0.31% for EU consumer VISA/MC debit cards and 0.9% for EU consumer VISA/MC credit cards). Though I guess lower fraud rate due to chip-and-pin requirement also plays a part.