6 ms·

Visa, Mastercard Prepare to Raise Credit-Card Fees

100 points by marban 3y ago

iknowstuff 3y ago
In the US, Square terminals present QR codes for CashApp payments. They could more heavily lean into making a competitor to visa/mc. Would be nice if Apple Pay allowed non-visa/mc payments too.
- objclxt 3y ago
  > Would be nice if Apple Pay allowed non-visa/mc payments too. It does, a number of domestic NFC payment schemes like EFTPOS (in Canada) or Interac (in Australia) are supported. Or eMoney cards in Japan like Nanoco or Waon. It's just Visa and Mastercard have a complete stranglehold on the US market, there's no domestic competitor.
- bbarn 3y ago
  You can also use Apple cash at Apple pay stations. I'm not sure if that can be reloaded from a bank acct or not, but I get it trickled in with points from their card and when friends pay me. I don't know what that gets charged as to the retailer though. One of the places I go still charges a credit card fee to use it.
  - WorldMaker 3y ago
    Apple Cash is currently on the Visa Debit network for most users. (You can check for yourself, open up the Apple Wallet app, select your Apple Cash card, use the Ellipsis […] menu to go to Card Details and it will show your card number and network among the details.)
    - bbarn 3y ago
      Ah, good to know. That would explain why it wouldn't work in some places abroad. Machine probably couldn't process visa debit without inserting a card.
      - WorldMaker 3y ago
        When I first started using it was on Discover and I learned some of the businesses around me that wouldn't take Discover. For no particular reason so far that was my first and only experience with Discover.
squirrel6 3y ago
https://archive.is/ZU8la https://archive.is/ZU8la
- davidcollantes 3y ago
  This is broken to me, with an endless captcha.
  - ta988 3y ago
    Change your DNS. Unfortunately it is broken if you use cloudfare DNS.
    - ErneX 3y ago
      I use cloudflare and it works for me. It’s more likely op is using pihole or something like that.
      - ta988 3y ago
        it was doing that for me before I changed the DNS and I don't have a pihole (even tried with Adblocker disabled).
  - archo 3y ago
    Change your DNS - Cloudfare doesn't play nice with archive.today 2023:'public-dns' You may also try an archive.today mirror, ie.. https://archive.vn/ZU8la https://archive.vn/ZU8la https://archive.li/ZU8la https://archive.li/ZU8la https://archive.md/ZU8la https://archive.md/ZU8la https://archive.ph/ZU8la https://archive.ph/ZU8la
sithadmin 3y ago
>The changes could result in merchants paying an additional $502 million annually in fees Considering the global reach of the two processing networks...that seems small enough to be a rounding error. Hardly surprising considering the costs of everything seem to be on the rise.
- 26fingies 3y ago
  Their fees are a percentage though…
  - skyeto 3y ago
    ...and this is why it's mostly a good thing that the fee %'s are capped in the EU
    - w3ll_w3ll_w3ll 3y ago
      Actually just a specific fee is capped in EU, the interchange fee. "Interchange is a small fee typically paid by acquirers (retailer’s bank) to issuers (cardholder's bank), to recognise the value delivered to retailers, governments and consumers by accepting electronic payments." The interchange fee does not go to Visa or Mastercard, do I think they are free to increase any other fee (if they are not colluding in a cartel ;) BTW This is the reason that in EU credit cards gives no rewards or very small ones. Rewards are, for the most part, coming out of the interchange fee. https://www.mastercard.com/europe/en/regulatory/european-interchange.html https://www.mastercard.com/europe/en/regulatory/european-int...
      - skyeto 3y ago
        Ah, forgot that this is talking about assessment fees! :)
- pwndByDeath 3y ago
  500M out of 93B is about 0.5%
26fingies 3y ago
What a cool situation we’re in where two companies own most of our payments and apparently raise fees at the same time.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 (FedNow is live)
  - happymellon 3y ago
    Not in the US, so I may have misunderstood, but isn't FedNow for bank transfers rather than purchases?
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      No, it is also intended for purchases in the future. Shakedown is deposit to deposit accounts, alias support is coming soon (phone & email identifiers). Walmart specifically submitted public comments on the topic in support of FedNow due to its payments capabilities. You don't need your bank to support it, using a financial services provider like ACI Global or Jack Henry & Associates is sufficient. Last call at the interchange trough. https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/walmart-kroger-eye-instant-payments-fednow/649055/ https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/walmart-kroger-eye-instant... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37168917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37168917
    - TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
      Yes. I don’t believe FedNow is designed to transfer $5.32 to the local coffee shop.
      - kranke155 3y ago
        That’s what’s happened in Brazil with the PIX system. Same thing in Portugal with MBway. Starts as bank transfers then becomes the de facto way to transfer money.
aardvarkr 3y ago
It’s frustrating that the article didn’t say how much the fees would be going up.
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  Right now fees are variable and are not determined until the time of payment; costs change for each transaction based on a few variables such as which network is used, the bank issuer, the swipe method used. I expect the increase to be variable, too.
dgrin91 3y ago
This article is pretty light on details. What exactly are the new fees? In what situations do they apply? Is there some specific reason why Visa & Mastercard are doing this at almost the same time (beyond regular greed)?
- wredue 3y ago
  The new fees are “We are publicly traded companies and are failing to meet growth demands, and so are raising prices, because as we all know, not infinitely growing means you’re a failure of a company”
- cpncrunch 3y ago
  Some details here: https://www.moneris.com/en/support/additional-resources/payment-card-network-fee-updates https://www.moneris.com/en/support/additional-resources/paym... Premium card fees up from 1.8% to 1.85% and super-premium up from 1.97% to 1.98%. Bloomberg claims that Mastercard is introducing a pre-authorization fee: https://archive.ph/sFo82 https://archive.ph/sFo82 However, you can see in the Moneris page that Mastercard actually introduced that pre-auth fee back in Nov 2019, and it is 0.05% or $0.01. So, seems to be pretty much a clickbait nothing-burger.
Workaccount2 3y ago
Turning up the pressure for market disruption. Get your thinkers going, because retailers are in a position where they would love to work with you. I wonder if the newly opened FedNow service could work as a viable back end for enormous amounts of micropayments
- DesiLurker 3y ago
  I have hopes with FedNow but need to be a bank to avail its facilities. which is not super hard but will need a bunch of capital. at least it can corner all the micro payment & debit purchase market with low overhead. Kinda like India's RuPay mechanism. that will end up butchering the CC companies cash cows though. When enough data flows through the system someone can creates a pseudo-credit score by looking at income-expense flow and use it to extend credit cutting out these ancient leeches.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    I think the killer is that you would be forced to interface with consumer's banks, who wouldn't be particularly interested in helping your effort to undermine credit cards. Or you could extend credit, but then you need to charge fees to cover interest of loaning out that money. Never mind the massive capital reserves to cover it. And now you're really just another credit card company.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
      > with consumer's banks, who wouldn't be particularly interested in helping your effort to undermine credit cards. Credit unions might be, however.
- ncr100 3y ago
  I speculate V & MC see the market has already been disrupted, and they are making the most of the delayed-impact. Raising fees while they can. That is what a smart business would do, respond to foreseeable pressure.
xnx 3y ago
The nice thing about having mega corps like Apple, Facebook, and Amazon is that they're big enough (and well liked enough by consumers) to work around some monopolies. Google and Apple have dipped their toes in this direction, but could take it further if rates become too onerous.
ta988 3y ago
A lot of stores are starting to make clients pay them (and do not communicate most of the time, so check your receipts). This plus the forced tips and fees in restaurants. It is probably time to force any seller to show the real price not the tax and fee free one. I'm fine if there is a cash discount (some places do that and that's much more respectful of the cliets as they usually advertise for it). edit: clarify my last sentence
- aabhay 3y ago
  I’m sorry, why should sellers be fined for cash discounts? Owning a credit card is not a legal right, it’s a privately owned transaction processing network. If my daughter sells lemonade on the street corner and asks that you tip her with the credit card fees that she got charged to take your mode of payment she is at fault?
  - Skeime 3y ago
    From the context, I suspect they meant “And then it is fine if they offer a cash discount” (but you have to give the full price for non-cash customers as the default).
    - ta988 3y ago
      exact I fixed it thanks
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - capableweb 3y ago
    > If my daughter sells lemonade on the street corner and asks that you tip her with the credit card fees that she got charged to take your mode of payment she is at fault? Depends on the location. In the EU, it would be illegal to charge someone more for using a credit or debit card: > You're not allowed to charge your customers extra for using a credit or debit card. This applies to all card purchases (in shops and online) made throughout the EU. https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making-receiving-payments/electronic-cash-payments/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making... Guessing there are no such laws in the US? Or maybe nowhere else? Not sure.
heliodor 3y ago
> Card fees and their effect on businesses have caught the attention of some in Congress. > Lawmakers recently reintroduced legislation in both the House and Senate that would give merchants the ability to process many Visa and Mastercard credit cards over alternate networks. A similar rule already exists for debit cards. > The bill could potentially lower the fees that merchants have to pay. The House and Senate bills have each been referred to a committee.
wslh 3y ago
I think they raise fees because THEY CAN. In the same way Google Ads could change the prices or their algorithms "optimization".
havaloc 3y ago
V and MC need to be careful here. My natural gas utility has decided to turn off auto pay using credit cards completely. V and MC should be happy to collect their 3-5% and leave it alone, but keep on kicking the bear and acceptance and usage is going to go down. They are going to kill the golden goose. If they were smart (and they aren't), they'd work to lower fees and make sure that utility providers can continue to accept cards at a lower fee structure. We are at peak credit card usage and with any increase that's only going to drop.
- kalleboo 3y ago
  Especially as the barriers to entry for competitors are much lower with QR code/mobile payments taking off in many countries (UPI, tikkie, swish, mobilpay, paypay etc etc)
- itslennysfault 3y ago
  Agreed. More and more companies are allowing ACH and passing (some of) the savings to the customer. I worked in this industry and it is really hard to get users to be comfortable with linking a bank account, but the incentive for the company is pretty huge. Any company that can bribe the user to make the switch should. Especially for recurring payments.
  - ROTMetro 3y ago
    Problem with ACH is you have to cancel your bank account to stop withdrawals. There are horror stories of people getting fired and being unable to stop ACH withdrawals (I'd rather my rent bounce this month than not be able to eat, etc) and ending up hosed. With a card you can just cancel the card number. It's best to use your bank's bill pay (push) instead of any external automated billing (pull).
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  T-Mobile no longer provides an autopay discount unless you switch to ACH from credit card payment.
  - 3y ago
unboxingelf 3y ago
Bitcoin fixes this
- datavirtue 3y ago
  Go away
  - unboxingelf 3y ago
    Contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.
- codexb 3y ago
  No, it doesn't. Transaction processors are paid by the proceeds from mining. That only lasts until the bitcoin cap is reached. Then they will start charging to process the blockchain.
  - unboxingelf 3y ago
    Transaction processors are paid by the proceeds from mining The miner that wins the block gets the sum of the transaction fees and the block reward. Once all Bitcoin has been dispersed and the subsidy is done, miners only get transactions fees.
    - codexb 3y ago
      Yes, which means once block rewards are no longer subsidizing transactions, those fees will need to increase.
  - pixelpoet 3y ago
    Agreed, besides the many other problems with PoW. What about Ethereum and the many improvements it's making to scalability? Of course it's not solving the exact same problem (e.g. fraud protection), but it does seem like a basis for payment services which can.
    - 3y ago
leecarraher 3y ago
good for them, they totally could really use that extra cash flow from folks who can't afford to pay their bills
mschuster91 3y ago
Good luck trying that in the EU, we capped their fees years ago.
juancn 3y ago
Regulate the fees and be done with it. They're effective monopolies.
rwaksmunski 3y ago
In the EU processing fees are capped at 0.05 + 0.2% Debt or 0.3% Credit. Somehow Visa and MC manage just fine.
apricot 3y ago
Holy collusion Batman. No worries, a class action lawsuit will follow and we will all get fat $17.30 checks in 2029.
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  I'll just leave this here in case anyone finds it useful. This system only works if you participate in it. When you think surely the government will do something about this, be the person to get that ball rolling, it doesn't happen by magic. https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
divbzero 3y ago
The article is light on details about how much the fees will change and how often similar fee changes occur. Visa and Mastercard previously announced a fee increase in 2020 [1] that was delayed due to the pandemic and eventually implemented in April 2022 [2]. [1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-challenge-for-small-businesses-higher-card-fees-could-be-on-the-way-11586424603 https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-challenge-for-small-bus... [2]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-mastercard-prepare-to-raise-credit-card-fees-11646743166 https://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-mastercard-prepare-to-rais...
exabrial 3y ago
Reminds me of the "Honest Cable Company" ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso "Looking for a better deal? Hah! You can oligopple down our balls!"
natroniks 3y ago
Knowing about the corporate history of these mega-corporations is helpful to understand their ubiquity today. Mastercard came out of Bank of America's innovative "Master Charge" business. Visa was formed from a consortium of many banks. Kinda parallel to how Venmo is owned by one financial firm while Zelle is owned by a consortium (perhaps one day each spins out to become the next gen MA nad V). To this day, Visa stock has a 96% institutional ownership, far higher than the avg megacap. Mastercard has over 75% inst ownership. The structural importance of these companies today goes back to their respective origins in the banks themselves.

100 points by marban 3y ago

In the US, Square terminals present QR codes for CashApp payments. They could more heavily lean into making a competitor to visa/mc. Would be nice if Apple Pay allowed non-visa/mc payments too.

objclxt 3y ago
> Would be nice if Apple Pay allowed non-visa/mc payments too. It does, a number of domestic NFC payment schemes like EFTPOS (in Canada) or Interac (in Australia) are supported. Or eMoney cards in Japan like Nanoco or Waon. It's just Visa and Mastercard have a complete stranglehold on the US market, there's no domestic competitor.
bbarn 3y ago
You can also use Apple cash at Apple pay stations. I'm not sure if that can be reloaded from a bank acct or not, but I get it trickled in with points from their card and when friends pay me. I don't know what that gets charged as to the retailer though. One of the places I go still charges a credit card fee to use it.
- WorldMaker 3y ago
  Apple Cash is currently on the Visa Debit network for most users. (You can check for yourself, open up the Apple Wallet app, select your Apple Cash card, use the Ellipsis […] menu to go to Card Details and it will show your card number and network among the details.)
  - bbarn 3y ago
    Ah, good to know. That would explain why it wouldn't work in some places abroad. Machine probably couldn't process visa debit without inserting a card.
    - WorldMaker 3y ago
      When I first started using it was on Discover and I learned some of the businesses around me that wouldn't take Discover. For no particular reason so far that was my first and only experience with Discover.

squirrel6 3y ago

https://archive.is/ZU8la https://archive.is/ZU8la

davidcollantes 3y ago
This is broken to me, with an endless captcha.
- ta988 3y ago
  Change your DNS. Unfortunately it is broken if you use cloudfare DNS.
  - ErneX 3y ago
    I use cloudflare and it works for me. It’s more likely op is using pihole or something like that.
    - ta988 3y ago
      it was doing that for me before I changed the DNS and I don't have a pihole (even tried with Adblocker disabled).
- archo 3y ago
  Change your DNS - Cloudfare doesn't play nice with archive.today 2023:'public-dns' You may also try an archive.today mirror, ie.. https://archive.vn/ZU8la https://archive.vn/ZU8la https://archive.li/ZU8la https://archive.li/ZU8la https://archive.md/ZU8la https://archive.md/ZU8la https://archive.ph/ZU8la https://archive.ph/ZU8la

sithadmin 3y ago

>The changes could result in merchants paying an additional $502 million annually in fees Considering the global reach of the two processing networks...that seems small enough to be a rounding error. Hardly surprising considering the costs of everything seem to be on the rise.

26fingies 3y ago
Their fees are a percentage though…
- skyeto 3y ago
  ...and this is why it's mostly a good thing that the fee %'s are capped in the EU
  - w3ll_w3ll_w3ll 3y ago
    Actually just a specific fee is capped in EU, the interchange fee. "Interchange is a small fee typically paid by acquirers (retailer’s bank) to issuers (cardholder's bank), to recognise the value delivered to retailers, governments and consumers by accepting electronic payments." The interchange fee does not go to Visa or Mastercard, do I think they are free to increase any other fee (if they are not colluding in a cartel ;) BTW This is the reason that in EU credit cards gives no rewards or very small ones. Rewards are, for the most part, coming out of the interchange fee. https://www.mastercard.com/europe/en/regulatory/european-interchange.html https://www.mastercard.com/europe/en/regulatory/european-int...
    - skyeto 3y ago
      Ah, forgot that this is talking about assessment fees! :)
pwndByDeath 3y ago
500M out of 93B is about 0.5%

26fingies 3y ago

What a cool situation we’re in where two companies own most of our payments and apparently raise fees at the same time.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 (FedNow is live)
- happymellon 3y ago
  Not in the US, so I may have misunderstood, but isn't FedNow for bank transfers rather than purchases?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    No, it is also intended for purchases in the future. Shakedown is deposit to deposit accounts, alias support is coming soon (phone & email identifiers). Walmart specifically submitted public comments on the topic in support of FedNow due to its payments capabilities. You don't need your bank to support it, using a financial services provider like ACI Global or Jack Henry & Associates is sufficient. Last call at the interchange trough. https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/walmart-kroger-eye-instant-payments-fednow/649055/ https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/walmart-kroger-eye-instant... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37168917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37168917
  - TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
    Yes. I don’t believe FedNow is designed to transfer $5.32 to the local coffee shop.
    - kranke155 3y ago
      That’s what’s happened in Brazil with the PIX system. Same thing in Portugal with MBway. Starts as bank transfers then becomes the de facto way to transfer money.

aardvarkr 3y ago

It’s frustrating that the article didn’t say how much the fees would be going up.

TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
Right now fees are variable and are not determined until the time of payment; costs change for each transaction based on a few variables such as which network is used, the bank issuer, the swipe method used. I expect the increase to be variable, too.

dgrin91 3y ago

This article is pretty light on details. What exactly are the new fees? In what situations do they apply? Is there some specific reason why Visa & Mastercard are doing this at almost the same time (beyond regular greed)?

wredue 3y ago
The new fees are “We are publicly traded companies and are failing to meet growth demands, and so are raising prices, because as we all know, not infinitely growing means you’re a failure of a company”
cpncrunch 3y ago
Some details here: https://www.moneris.com/en/support/additional-resources/payment-card-network-fee-updates https://www.moneris.com/en/support/additional-resources/paym... Premium card fees up from 1.8% to 1.85% and super-premium up from 1.97% to 1.98%. Bloomberg claims that Mastercard is introducing a pre-authorization fee: https://archive.ph/sFo82 https://archive.ph/sFo82 However, you can see in the Moneris page that Mastercard actually introduced that pre-auth fee back in Nov 2019, and it is 0.05% or $0.01. So, seems to be pretty much a clickbait nothing-burger.

Workaccount2 3y ago

Turning up the pressure for market disruption. Get your thinkers going, because retailers are in a position where they would love to work with you. I wonder if the newly opened FedNow service could work as a viable back end for enormous amounts of micropayments

DesiLurker 3y ago
I have hopes with FedNow but need to be a bank to avail its facilities. which is not super hard but will need a bunch of capital. at least it can corner all the micro payment & debit purchase market with low overhead. Kinda like India's RuPay mechanism. that will end up butchering the CC companies cash cows though. When enough data flows through the system someone can creates a pseudo-credit score by looking at income-expense flow and use it to extend credit cutting out these ancient leeches.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  I think the killer is that you would be forced to interface with consumer's banks, who wouldn't be particularly interested in helping your effort to undermine credit cards. Or you could extend credit, but then you need to charge fees to cover interest of loaning out that money. Never mind the massive capital reserves to cover it. And now you're really just another credit card company.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    > with consumer's banks, who wouldn't be particularly interested in helping your effort to undermine credit cards. Credit unions might be, however.
ncr100 3y ago
I speculate V & MC see the market has already been disrupted, and they are making the most of the delayed-impact. Raising fees while they can. That is what a smart business would do, respond to foreseeable pressure.

xnx 3y ago

The nice thing about having mega corps like Apple, Facebook, and Amazon is that they're big enough (and well liked enough by consumers) to work around some monopolies. Google and Apple have dipped their toes in this direction, but could take it further if rates become too onerous.

ta988 3y ago

A lot of stores are starting to make clients pay them (and do not communicate most of the time, so check your receipts). This plus the forced tips and fees in restaurants. It is probably time to force any seller to show the real price not the tax and fee free one. I'm fine if there is a cash discount (some places do that and that's much more respectful of the cliets as they usually advertise for it). edit: clarify my last sentence

aabhay 3y ago
I’m sorry, why should sellers be fined for cash discounts? Owning a credit card is not a legal right, it’s a privately owned transaction processing network. If my daughter sells lemonade on the street corner and asks that you tip her with the credit card fees that she got charged to take your mode of payment she is at fault?
- Skeime 3y ago
  From the context, I suspect they meant “And then it is fine if they offer a cash discount” (but you have to give the full price for non-cash customers as the default).
  - ta988 3y ago
    exact I fixed it thanks
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- capableweb 3y ago
  > If my daughter sells lemonade on the street corner and asks that you tip her with the credit card fees that she got charged to take your mode of payment she is at fault? Depends on the location. In the EU, it would be illegal to charge someone more for using a credit or debit card: > You're not allowed to charge your customers extra for using a credit or debit card. This applies to all card purchases (in shops and online) made throughout the EU. https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making-receiving-payments/electronic-cash-payments/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/finance-funding/making... Guessing there are no such laws in the US? Or maybe nowhere else? Not sure.

heliodor 3y ago

> Card fees and their effect on businesses have caught the attention of some in Congress. > Lawmakers recently reintroduced legislation in both the House and Senate that would give merchants the ability to process many Visa and Mastercard credit cards over alternate networks. A similar rule already exists for debit cards. > The bill could potentially lower the fees that merchants have to pay. The House and Senate bills have each been referred to a committee.

wslh 3y ago

I think they raise fees because THEY CAN. In the same way Google Ads could change the prices or their algorithms "optimization".

havaloc 3y ago

V and MC need to be careful here. My natural gas utility has decided to turn off auto pay using credit cards completely. V and MC should be happy to collect their 3-5% and leave it alone, but keep on kicking the bear and acceptance and usage is going to go down. They are going to kill the golden goose. If they were smart (and they aren't), they'd work to lower fees and make sure that utility providers can continue to accept cards at a lower fee structure. We are at peak credit card usage and with any increase that's only going to drop.

kalleboo 3y ago
Especially as the barriers to entry for competitors are much lower with QR code/mobile payments taking off in many countries (UPI, tikkie, swish, mobilpay, paypay etc etc)
itslennysfault 3y ago
Agreed. More and more companies are allowing ACH and passing (some of) the savings to the customer. I worked in this industry and it is really hard to get users to be comfortable with linking a bank account, but the incentive for the company is pretty huge. Any company that can bribe the user to make the switch should. Especially for recurring payments.
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  Problem with ACH is you have to cancel your bank account to stop withdrawals. There are horror stories of people getting fired and being unable to stop ACH withdrawals (I'd rather my rent bounce this month than not be able to eat, etc) and ending up hosed. With a card you can just cancel the card number. It's best to use your bank's bill pay (push) instead of any external automated billing (pull).
toomuchtodo 3y ago
T-Mobile no longer provides an autopay discount unless you switch to ACH from credit card payment.
- 3y ago

unboxingelf 3y ago

Bitcoin fixes this

datavirtue 3y ago
Go away
- unboxingelf 3y ago
  Contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.
codexb 3y ago
No, it doesn't. Transaction processors are paid by the proceeds from mining. That only lasts until the bitcoin cap is reached. Then they will start charging to process the blockchain.
- unboxingelf 3y ago
  Transaction processors are paid by the proceeds from mining The miner that wins the block gets the sum of the transaction fees and the block reward. Once all Bitcoin has been dispersed and the subsidy is done, miners only get transactions fees.
  - codexb 3y ago
    Yes, which means once block rewards are no longer subsidizing transactions, those fees will need to increase.
- pixelpoet 3y ago
  Agreed, besides the many other problems with PoW. What about Ethereum and the many improvements it's making to scalability? Of course it's not solving the exact same problem (e.g. fraud protection), but it does seem like a basis for payment services which can.
  - 3y ago

leecarraher 3y ago

good for them, they totally could really use that extra cash flow from folks who can't afford to pay their bills

mschuster91 3y ago

Good luck trying that in the EU, we capped their fees years ago.

juancn 3y ago

Regulate the fees and be done with it. They're effective monopolies.

rwaksmunski 3y ago

In the EU processing fees are capped at 0.05 + 0.2% Debt or 0.3% Credit. Somehow Visa and MC manage just fine.

apricot 3y ago

Holy collusion Batman. No worries, a class action lawsuit will follow and we will all get fat $17.30 checks in 2029.

ROTMetro 3y ago
I'll just leave this here in case anyone finds it useful. This system only works if you participate in it. When you think surely the government will do something about this, be the person to get that ball rolling, it doesn't happen by magic. https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/ https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

divbzero 3y ago

The article is light on details about how much the fees will change and how often similar fee changes occur. Visa and Mastercard previously announced a fee increase in 2020 [1] that was delayed due to the pandemic and eventually implemented in April 2022 [2]. [1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-challenge-for-small-businesses-higher-card-fees-could-be-on-the-way-11586424603 https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-challenge-for-small-bus... [2]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-mastercard-prepare-to-raise-credit-card-fees-11646743166 https://www.wsj.com/articles/visa-mastercard-prepare-to-rais...

exabrial 3y ago

Reminds me of the "Honest Cable Company" ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso "Looking for a better deal? Hah! You can oligopple down our balls!"

natroniks 3y ago

Knowing about the corporate history of these mega-corporations is helpful to understand their ubiquity today. Mastercard came out of Bank of America's innovative "Master Charge" business. Visa was formed from a consortium of many banks. Kinda parallel to how Venmo is owned by one financial firm while Zelle is owned by a consortium (perhaps one day each spins out to become the next gen MA nad V). To this day, Visa stock has a 96% institutional ownership, far higher than the avg megacap. Mastercard has over 75% inst ownership. The structural importance of these companies today goes back to their respective origins in the banks themselves.