3 ms·

That's excellent. We have too many blood sucking financial people and they are draining the life out of the USA, producing nothing of lasting value! Credit ca

That's excellent. We have too many blood sucking financial people and they are draining the life out of the USA, producing nothing of lasting value! Credit cards are solved problem for the last 30 years. The fact that they take 3% to 4% of every transaction and then extract a usurious 20% annual interest rate at a time when loan rates are 4% should be criminally prosecuted. A 1% cut and 3% over prime rate interest rate (currently 5.5%) should be mandated by legislation!

ninju 7y ago
The reason for the higher interest rate is due to loss and fraud costs. Traditional loans (car, house, HELOC, etc...) can have much lower rates because if there are assets that are put up as collateral (the car, house) that can be repossessed and re-sold by the bank; while in the case of most credit card purchases there is no recourse for the issuing bank to recover the money that owed to the merchant bank. As long as you live within your means (i.e. pay your balance off every month) a credit card can a convenient payment mechanism
opportune 7y ago
Credit card loans aren't collateralized and can be spent on almost anything so the risk of default (without collecting the principal) is higher, at least in theory. Usually most consumer loans, like car or houses, are easily collateralized. Can't do that with a vacation to the bahamas
AnssiH 7y ago
> The fact that they take 3% to 4% of every transaction and then extract a usurious 20% annual interest rate at a time when loan rates are 4% should be criminally prosecuted. The fees seem to vary a lot by region. Here in Finland majority of cards are VISA/MC (with no local version like described above for Norway), but the card-present merchant transaction fees are low - e.g. ~0.3% for EU consumer debit cards and ~0.9% for EU consumer credit cards.

3 ms·

That's excellent. We have too many blood sucking financial people and they are draining the life out of the USA, producing nothing of lasting value! Credit ca

by williamDafoe 7y ago

ninju 7y ago
The reason for the higher interest rate is due to loss and fraud costs. Traditional loans (car, house, HELOC, etc...) can have much lower rates because if there are assets that are put up as collateral (the car, house) that can be repossessed and re-sold by the bank; while in the case of most credit card purchases there is no recourse for the issuing bank to recover the money that owed to the merchant bank. As long as you live within your means (i.e. pay your balance off every month) a credit card can a convenient payment mechanism
opportune 7y ago
Credit card loans aren't collateralized and can be spent on almost anything so the risk of default (without collecting the principal) is higher, at least in theory. Usually most consumer loans, like car or houses, are easily collateralized. Can't do that with a vacation to the bahamas
AnssiH 7y ago
> The fact that they take 3% to 4% of every transaction and then extract a usurious 20% annual interest rate at a time when loan rates are 4% should be criminally prosecuted. The fees seem to vary a lot by region. Here in Finland majority of cards are VISA/MC (with no local version like described above for Norway), but the card-present merchant transaction fees are low - e.g. ~0.3% for EU consumer debit cards and ~0.9% for EU consumer credit cards.