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> Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards. I worked in credit card payments (on acquiring

> Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards. I worked in credit card payments (on acquiring side). Any market share advantage between Visa and Mastercard is very, very fragile. It is basically your choice which card to pull out for payment. It is also why Visa and Mastercard these are so alike almost in every aspect. When one does something, the other copies it. The only reason this is still split between two companies is exactly because of this parity between products. People have no reason to prefer one over other and simply toss a coin to make their choice. When I had chance to configure my phone to do NFC payments, my bank supported it only for Mastercard, so I configured Mastercard and that's how it is now. I know a lot of people got Mastercard because here (in Poland) it was tiny bit faster than Visa. If Amazon bans UK Visa, people will not stop using Amazon. They will either pull out the other card or grumble for couple of days and get Mastercard. It is likely Visa has NO negotiation power here. They are the ones that have commoditized themselves and are easily replaceable for their competitor. It is likely Amazon is well aware of this and this is just a show of strength that will be followed by Visa submitting to it because they have no choice.

pishpash 5y ago
I've understood Visa and Mastercard to share some kind of relationship but cannot find the source any more.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Yes, they are actually working together a lot. There is PCI (Payment Card Industry) and then there is EMV. There is probably more but the two have been important from my point of view. The main motivation for this is to make payment technology transparent to the user (as in use any card anywhere, expect similar behavior, etc.) A lot of this is standardized so much that it is virtually the same for both. And I know this, because it was my job to implement these standards. I calculated some 17 thousand pages of specifications in various forms. Both Visa and Mastercard gain a lot form this because it is not a zero-sum game. Because of this cooperation people have been steadily increasing their use of credit card payments and this I think created a lot more revenue than they could have ever created for themselves by winning a cutthroat competition.

pishpash 5y ago

I've understood Visa and Mastercard to share some kind of relationship but cannot find the source any more.

lmilcin 5y ago
Yes, they are actually working together a lot. There is PCI (Payment Card Industry) and then there is EMV. There is probably more but the two have been important from my point of view. The main motivation for this is to make payment technology transparent to the user (as in use any card anywhere, expect similar behavior, etc.) A lot of this is standardized so much that it is virtually the same for both. And I know this, because it was my job to implement these standards. I calculated some 17 thousand pages of specifications in various forms. Both Visa and Mastercard gain a lot form this because it is not a zero-sum game. Because of this cooperation people have been steadily increasing their use of credit card payments and this I think created a lot more revenue than they could have ever created for themselves by winning a cutthroat competition.