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Visa et al are going to charge a minimum transaction fee for small-value transactions, which covers the typical charging session. Third party services are an ad

Visa et al are going to charge a minimum transaction fee for small-value transactions, which covers the typical charging session. Third party services are an advantage, because they can bundle small transactions together and take advantage of their economies of scale and their own fraud models. There is a world where Visa and the payment card industry looked forward in the year 2005 and said “IoT devices like EVs will need payment capability, let’s think about how to be essential to this ecosystem in a way that removes the need for third party services and saves everyone money” but that kind of technical innovation seems to be outside of their core competency.

Symbiote 3y ago
The transactions are of higher value than many public transport tickets, and those are already common — either as normal purchases from a ticket machine, or with the special transaction type used when the payment card is touched to the reader on the ticket barrier. Following a recent trip I had a bunch of ~1€ transactions from buying single bus/metro tickets from machines.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  Visa charges a 5-10 cent fixed fee plus a percentage for those 1 Euro transactions. Presumably public transport just eats those costs, but in a commodity business like electricity I imagine it’s a noticeable chunk of the profit margin.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    1 cent fixed fee + percentage seems to be the standard where I am. It might be difficult in other EU countries but IIRC the fixed fee is capped at 5cents.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      The only public information I can find is this, which is from 2013 in London: Visa credit 0.65%, debit 1 pence. Mastercard credit 0.80%, debit 1 pence + 0.5%. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/costs_to_tfl_for_contactless_pay https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/costs_to_tfl_for_cont...
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > of ~1€ transactions In Europe, sure because the fees are capped. In the US you pay a fixed fee + x% which makes small transactions like this prohibitively expensive

Symbiote 3y ago

The transactions are of higher value than many public transport tickets, and those are already common — either as normal purchases from a ticket machine, or with the special transaction type used when the payment card is touched to the reader on the ticket barrier. Following a recent trip I had a bunch of ~1€ transactions from buying single bus/metro tickets from machines.

matthewdgreen 3y ago
Visa charges a 5-10 cent fixed fee plus a percentage for those 1 Euro transactions. Presumably public transport just eats those costs, but in a commodity business like electricity I imagine it’s a noticeable chunk of the profit margin.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  1 cent fixed fee + percentage seems to be the standard where I am. It might be difficult in other EU countries but IIRC the fixed fee is capped at 5cents.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    The only public information I can find is this, which is from 2013 in London: Visa credit 0.65%, debit 1 pence. Mastercard credit 0.80%, debit 1 pence + 0.5%. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/costs_to_tfl_for_contactless_pay https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/costs_to_tfl_for_cont...
ffgjgf1 3y ago
> of ~1€ transactions In Europe, sure because the fees are capped. In the US you pay a fixed fee + x% which makes small transactions like this prohibitively expensive