It has never, at any point since the introduction of electronic transfers, made the slightest bit of sense for 'payment processing' services to charge a fee whi

It has never, at any point since the introduction of electronic transfers, made the slightest bit of sense for 'payment processing' services to charge a fee which scales based upon the amount being transacted. Yet, every means of transferring money has always come with a percentage-based fee. This isn't just a simple matter of rent-seeking on the part of the financial class. It's outright dangerous, and really shouldn't be tolerated by any government. The cost to transfer money does not scale based upon the size of the numbers involved. And as the vast majority of transactions overall in our economy are now electronic, this puts payment processors essentially in the role of taxing authorities. They have the power to counteract the monetary policies of the government should they feel like doing so. Imagine if the Federal Reserve decided to print more money in order to encourage lending or something like that, but the CEOs of the largest payment processors disagreed. They could simply raise their processing fees, making it more expensive for money to be used, compensating and making the actions of the Fed ineffective. There is no law preventing them from doing this, as far as I know, and it would have immediate monumental impact on the economy. That's a juicy target. Any company willing to clear those regulatory hurdle gets to become not just a company, but effectively a taxing authority.