4 ms·
Not the whole world, this is mostly in the United States. In Europe its more like what you describe, banks are the card payment provider and we have (near) inst
by Lutger 3y ago
Not the whole world, this is mostly in the United States. In Europe its more like what you describe, banks are the card payment provider and we have (near) instant online transfers. Credit cards are relatively unimportant here.
- izacus 3y agoWhat are you going on about? Pretty much all European banks issue Visa/Mastercard credit and debit cards (sometimes under their subbrands Maestro and VPay) by default to pretty much all customers. Most in-store payment processing goes directly over those two companies still.
- zelphirkalt 3y agoPlus, if you want to buy anything online outside of your own country (in Europe), you will likely have to use a credit card or something like PayPal. Or some other third party, that is connected to your credit card.
- sofixa 3y agoBut the underlying payments network isn't necessarily Visa/Mastercard's. In the case of France, there's Cartes Bancaires https://www.cartes-bancaires.com/ https://www.cartes-bancaires.com/, which you can pay through regardless of your card type (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) as an alternative over paying through the Visa/Mastercard/Amex networks. And of course with GDPR, there are actual restrictions on how Visa/Mastercard can monetise your transaction history, and with banking regulations, how much of a cut they can take.
- pornel 3y agoInterchange fees are regulated in Europe. This prevents this weird inflation of card fees which are then returned via cashbacks.