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This was a fascinating piece of bluff calling by Amazon. I honestly expected Visa to hold their ground and let Amazon refuse to accept payment for millions of p

This was a fascinating piece of bluff calling by Amazon. I honestly expected Visa to hold their ground and let Amazon refuse to accept payment for millions of people. Edit: fair enough, I do not know if Amazon or Visa caved. I simply assumed Visa would. Then again it was Amazon threatening, so the only way for the world to know if Visa held on, is for Visa to hold on till Jan 19. At the moment we can assume both pulled back, or Amazon "won". Only once Jan 19 passes could we assume Amazon caved. Edit: Amazon UK has 15 Million Prime subscribers, and visa has ~ 80% market share in UK, so I am happy to say "millions" of people would at least have to scrabble and update their purchase settings. It would be disruptive to amazon - but the total cost? https://dontdisappoint.me.uk/resources/technology/amazon-statistics-uk/ https://dontdisappoint.me.uk/resources/technology/amazon-sta...

rtb 5y ago
Do you know that Visa have backed down and not Amazon? Can you share any info? I wasn't able to find any details of the deal.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  My guess is that Visa caved and that it was the plan. My rationale for this guess is that everyone in the UK who has a Visa credit card also has, at the very least, a Visa or Mastercard debit card. So this was going to make people change payment method but I doubt was going to make them stop buying from Amazon. I am exactly in that case and, like many, a Prime subscriber. I would have just changed card on Amazon and my use of my Visa credit card would have dropped 80%. Let's face it no-one was going to drop Amazon because of this and they knew it. In the UK Amazon sells $26 billion of stuff annually.
pbalau 5y ago
I really doubt there are millions of us that chose to pay on Amazon with Visa Credit Cards, here in UK.
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  Why? Are Visa credit cards not as common there as they are in the US?
  - disruptiveink 5y ago
    Norm in the UK amongst most banks/card issuers these days seems to be either Visa or Mastercard Debit and Mastercard Credit. Out of all the meaningful issuers that I know of, only Barclaycard and HSBC issue Visa Credit, with everyone else issuing Mastercard (or Amex, which targets a different kind of users).
    - buggeryorkshire 5y ago
      Yeah, pretty much most cards you get now are MasterCard I assume due to Visa fees.
- chimpansteve 5y ago
  It's anyone with a HSBC or Barclaycard credit card, so probably quite a lot of people
  - MagnumOpus 5y ago
    People who care enough about that sort of thing have Amex reward cards too which Amazon would still accept. People who don't care enough would normally have been OK paying with their Visa Debit which they will usually also have as an HSBC or Barclays retail customer...
    - philjohn 5y ago
      Except it's hammered home in the UK to use credit cards for online purchases where possible for Section 75 protection as well as if the card details are involved in a breach you don't have your bank account emptied and can't pay your bills. Section 75 in particular has a lot of attention in the UK because over the last 4 years a lot of businesses have gone bust, and people who paid by bank transfer or debit card were shafted, receiving pennies on the pound (if that).
darrenf 5y ago
> visa has ~ 80% market share in UK What is this statistic measuring? Number of adults who have some form of Visa card? Number of transactions in total? Online transactions? Debit and credit cards combined? If you're able to provide more detail that would be useful. According to the industry, debit card usage far outstrips credit card usage, at a ratio of about 3:1 for online purchases[0] - and debit cards were unaffected by Amazon's proposed change. So if we assume the 3:1 ratio holds true for Amazon customers, then we're looking at an absolute maximum of 15m/4 == 3.75 million customers - i.e. if all of them are paying with Visa. Five years ago it was reported that MasterCard had 65% of UK credit card market[1]. If we assume that hasn't shifted much, and ignore Amex and other issuers (i.e. granting Visa a generous 35% market) then we end up at 3.75m*0.35 = 1.31 million customers, or about 8.7% of Prime subscribers. A big and valuable chunk, to be sure - and obviously Amazon's customer base could well skew towards Visa for some reason or other - but to me it still isn't anywhere near as dramatic as "Visa has ~80% market share" implies. [0] https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Card-Spending-Update-September-2021-final.pdf https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Car... [1] https://cmspi.com/eur/blogs/competition-in-the-debit-card-issuing-market/ https://cmspi.com/eur/blogs/competition-in-the-debit-card-is...
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116580/payment-card-scheme-market-share-in-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116580/payment-card-sch... I think transaction share (ie number of swipes). The main issue for me is that its a big number - Amazon and Visa will have much more detailed models, but the direction of travel is the same - will people swap to Mastercard or just not buy?
  - jhugo 5y ago
    That question seems absurd. Of course they'll just get a Mastercard if they don't already have one. The U.K. is full of neobanks that will give you one on your phone in 5 minutes.
    - 5y ago
notahacker 5y ago
> Then again it was Amazon threatening, so the only way for the world to know if Visa held on, is for Visa to hold on till Jan 19. At the moment we can assume both pulled back, or Amazon "won" I don't see how that follows. Amazon has an interest in not irritating its customers and losing sales (just because most people own other cards doesn't mean everyone will update, especially not for recurring billing like Prime subs), and just as much interest in resolving that before Jan 19 if Visa wouldn't cave as Visa if Amazon wouldn't. Just because they threatened doesn't mean they couldn't have internal forecasts suggesting that following through on the threat would be worse for business than accepting what was already on the table.

rtb 5y ago

Do you know that Visa have backed down and not Amazon? Can you share any info? I wasn't able to find any details of the deal.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
My guess is that Visa caved and that it was the plan. My rationale for this guess is that everyone in the UK who has a Visa credit card also has, at the very least, a Visa or Mastercard debit card. So this was going to make people change payment method but I doubt was going to make them stop buying from Amazon. I am exactly in that case and, like many, a Prime subscriber. I would have just changed card on Amazon and my use of my Visa credit card would have dropped 80%. Let's face it no-one was going to drop Amazon because of this and they knew it. In the UK Amazon sells $26 billion of stuff annually.

pbalau 5y ago

I really doubt there are millions of us that chose to pay on Amazon with Visa Credit Cards, here in UK.

School-Cotton 5y ago
Why? Are Visa credit cards not as common there as they are in the US?
- disruptiveink 5y ago
  Norm in the UK amongst most banks/card issuers these days seems to be either Visa or Mastercard Debit and Mastercard Credit. Out of all the meaningful issuers that I know of, only Barclaycard and HSBC issue Visa Credit, with everyone else issuing Mastercard (or Amex, which targets a different kind of users).
  - buggeryorkshire 5y ago
    Yeah, pretty much most cards you get now are MasterCard I assume due to Visa fees.
chimpansteve 5y ago
It's anyone with a HSBC or Barclaycard credit card, so probably quite a lot of people
- MagnumOpus 5y ago
  People who care enough about that sort of thing have Amex reward cards too which Amazon would still accept. People who don't care enough would normally have been OK paying with their Visa Debit which they will usually also have as an HSBC or Barclays retail customer...
  - philjohn 5y ago
    Except it's hammered home in the UK to use credit cards for online purchases where possible for Section 75 protection as well as if the card details are involved in a breach you don't have your bank account emptied and can't pay your bills. Section 75 in particular has a lot of attention in the UK because over the last 4 years a lot of businesses have gone bust, and people who paid by bank transfer or debit card were shafted, receiving pennies on the pound (if that).

darrenf 5y ago

> visa has ~ 80% market share in UK What is this statistic measuring? Number of adults who have some form of Visa card? Number of transactions in total? Online transactions? Debit and credit cards combined? If you're able to provide more detail that would be useful. According to the industry, debit card usage far outstrips credit card usage, at a ratio of about 3:1 for online purchases[0] - and debit cards were unaffected by Amazon's proposed change. So if we assume the 3:1 ratio holds true for Amazon customers, then we're looking at an absolute maximum of 15m/4 == 3.75 million customers - i.e. if all of them are paying with Visa. Five years ago it was reported that MasterCard had 65% of UK credit card market[1]. If we assume that hasn't shifted much, and ignore Amex and other issuers (i.e. granting Visa a generous 35% market) then we end up at 3.75m*0.35 = 1.31 million customers, or about 8.7% of Prime subscribers. A big and valuable chunk, to be sure - and obviously Amazon's customer base could well skew towards Visa for some reason or other - but to me it still isn't anywhere near as dramatic as "Visa has ~80% market share" implies. [0] https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Card-Spending-Update-September-2021-final.pdf https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Car... [1] https://cmspi.com/eur/blogs/competition-in-the-debit-card-issuing-market/ https://cmspi.com/eur/blogs/competition-in-the-debit-card-is...

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116580/payment-card-scheme-market-share-in-europe-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116580/payment-card-sch... I think transaction share (ie number of swipes). The main issue for me is that its a big number - Amazon and Visa will have much more detailed models, but the direction of travel is the same - will people swap to Mastercard or just not buy?
- jhugo 5y ago
  That question seems absurd. Of course they'll just get a Mastercard if they don't already have one. The U.K. is full of neobanks that will give you one on your phone in 5 minutes.
  - 5y ago

notahacker 5y ago

> Then again it was Amazon threatening, so the only way for the world to know if Visa held on, is for Visa to hold on till Jan 19. At the moment we can assume both pulled back, or Amazon "won" I don't see how that follows. Amazon has an interest in not irritating its customers and losing sales (just because most people own other cards doesn't mean everyone will update, especially not for recurring billing like Prime subs), and just as much interest in resolving that before Jan 19 if Visa wouldn't cave as Visa if Amazon wouldn't. Just because they threatened doesn't mean they couldn't have internal forecasts suggesting that following through on the threat would be worse for business than accepting what was already on the table.