3 ms·

Capitalism at its worst. When Amazon (non digital service), Apple, Google (digital) charges 30% fee for their services, no one can do anything, but when Visa i

Capitalism at its worst. When Amazon (non digital service), Apple, Google (digital) charges 30% fee for their services, no one can do anything, but when Visa increased their fees from 0.2% to 0.3% and 1.15 to 1.5% Amazon is screaming and shutting them down. And eventually they won and probably got nice discount as well, when other merchants can't do anything with it

mschuster91 5y ago
The current events are yet another Brexit-related issue IIRC. Under EU regulations, CC fees are capped under Reg 2015/751 [1]. As a consequence of Brexit, British consumers and companies lost the protections that EU law provides and that have been not codified into British law (like the GDPR was). The legal foundation for the EU to regulate CC fees is the goal of ensuring affordable equal access to credit/debit card payments for all consumers, and the legal authority are decades of banking regulation. App stores are not seen as part of that regulation since their payments are not deemed to be instruments of finance, so there is no legal basis to cap their fees - but individual member states can (and do, like the Netherlands [2]) regulate app stores. [1]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32015R0751&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... [2]: https://www.heise.de/news/Niederlande-Erstmals-externe-Bezahldienste-in-Apples-App-Store-erlaubt-6327449.html https://www.heise.de/news/Niederlande-Erstmals-externe-Bezah...
- alibarber 5y ago
  It's more complicated than that. UK -> UK transactions are capped at the same rate as they were pre-brexit. That was codified into UK law. The problem here is that Amazon UK, the part that the consumer pays at least, is _not_ a UK company, it is a Luxembourg based company. Therefore, there is no cap because from their side it is an EU -> Non EU payment received, no longer an intra EU payment. These types of payments were never capped by the EU. So yes, Brexit caused this, but then, given that other companies do seem to be able to take payments in the UK, and that all of their physical UK operations take place in the UK, perhaps they could have avoided it by re-locating the payments to the UK. Except, I do think that may have meant attracting a higher tax bill. Honestly, making it difficult for companies to relocate their profits to a tax haven could be regarded by some as a feature of Brexit, instead of a bug.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

mschuster91 5y ago

The current events are yet another Brexit-related issue IIRC. Under EU regulations, CC fees are capped under Reg 2015/751 [1]. As a consequence of Brexit, British consumers and companies lost the protections that EU law provides and that have been not codified into British law (like the GDPR was). The legal foundation for the EU to regulate CC fees is the goal of ensuring affordable equal access to credit/debit card payments for all consumers, and the legal authority are decades of banking regulation. App stores are not seen as part of that regulation since their payments are not deemed to be instruments of finance, so there is no legal basis to cap their fees - but individual member states can (and do, like the Netherlands [2]) regulate app stores. [1]: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32015R0751&from=EN https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... [2]: https://www.heise.de/news/Niederlande-Erstmals-externe-Bezahldienste-in-Apples-App-Store-erlaubt-6327449.html https://www.heise.de/news/Niederlande-Erstmals-externe-Bezah...

alibarber 5y ago
It's more complicated than that. UK -> UK transactions are capped at the same rate as they were pre-brexit. That was codified into UK law. The problem here is that Amazon UK, the part that the consumer pays at least, is _not_ a UK company, it is a Luxembourg based company. Therefore, there is no cap because from their side it is an EU -> Non EU payment received, no longer an intra EU payment. These types of payments were never capped by the EU. So yes, Brexit caused this, but then, given that other companies do seem to be able to take payments in the UK, and that all of their physical UK operations take place in the UK, perhaps they could have avoided it by re-locating the payments to the UK. Except, I do think that may have meant attracting a higher tax bill. Honestly, making it difficult for companies to relocate their profits to a tax haven could be regarded by some as a feature of Brexit, instead of a bug.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]