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Let's translate them, it is not really that they want to protect users against fraud, but they want to put themselves up in the payment chain to try to secure t

Let's translate them, it is not really that they want to protect users against fraud, but they want to put themselves up in the payment chain to try to secure their monopolistic position. The goal is to go up the chain up to the bank account owner. For example you will need an app provided by Mastercard to do the 2fa, or the bank will have to use Mastercard technology/stack in their own apps and transmit more data about their users to Mastercard.

dewey 2y ago
It’s rarely about protecting the user from fraud but more about protecting MC from fraud as they usually shoulder these costs. Replacing passwords with tokens isn’t much different to passkeys instead of passwords.
Yeul 2y ago
People in my country don't like creditcards so they are trying to sell their debit cards. In the US,as I understand it, its considered perfectly acceptable for MasterCard to take a few percent of every transaction.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  Yes this is correct and there isn’t an alternative. Worse, both MasterCard and Visa also take moral or political positions on what transactions are allowed. For example you may have trouble collecting payments for porn. A more serious example is when they banned donations to Wikileaks in 2010 [link below], as a coordinated action doing the state’s bidding. This was in response to the release of diplomatic cables, which is just plain old journalism. In my opinion, this issue of control and freedom is worse than the transactional cost. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m...
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > moral or political positions It's legal and fraud considerations. You have a toxic mix of fraud risks, money laundering risks, and the potential risk of accidently enabling legally radioactive CSAM when supporting pornography. This is way too much risk to bank an industry that is smaller than most other sectors. In the Wikileaks case, the lack of redaction meant Wikileaks and its enablers could face multiple national security and espionage related charges. That is too much risk. At the end of the day, if you are a payment processor you will have to assume liability for abetting your customers actions. And if you do not moderate well enough, as an executive your head is personally on the line for plenty of civil and even criminal charges.
alephnerd 2y ago
> secure their monopolistic position Mastercard is rolling this out in India. In India and other countries that skipped the credit card phase (eg. China, Vietnam, Phillipines, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, etc), most non-cash payments are done directly via an e-wallet and OTP. This is an attempt by Mastercard to try and merge that payment flow into their environment, otherwise they face a low adoption rate in growth markets across Asia and Africa. Most vendors do not offer payment via card, and those that do will almost always also offer e-wallet as a payment method.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Visa and MasterCard getting steamrolled by central banks rolling out instant payment infra.

dewey 2y ago

It’s rarely about protecting the user from fraud but more about protecting MC from fraud as they usually shoulder these costs. Replacing passwords with tokens isn’t much different to passkeys instead of passwords.

Yeul 2y ago

People in my country don't like creditcards so they are trying to sell their debit cards. In the US,as I understand it, its considered perfectly acceptable for MasterCard to take a few percent of every transaction.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Yes this is correct and there isn’t an alternative. Worse, both MasterCard and Visa also take moral or political positions on what transactions are allowed. For example you may have trouble collecting payments for porn. A more serious example is when they banned donations to Wikileaks in 2010 [link below], as a coordinated action doing the state’s bidding. This was in response to the release of diplomatic cables, which is just plain old journalism. In my opinion, this issue of control and freedom is worse than the transactional cost. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-mastercard-move-to-choke-wikileaks/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/12/07/visa-m...
- alephnerd 2y ago
  > moral or political positions It's legal and fraud considerations. You have a toxic mix of fraud risks, money laundering risks, and the potential risk of accidently enabling legally radioactive CSAM when supporting pornography. This is way too much risk to bank an industry that is smaller than most other sectors. In the Wikileaks case, the lack of redaction meant Wikileaks and its enablers could face multiple national security and espionage related charges. That is too much risk. At the end of the day, if you are a payment processor you will have to assume liability for abetting your customers actions. And if you do not moderate well enough, as an executive your head is personally on the line for plenty of civil and even criminal charges.

alephnerd 2y ago

> secure their monopolistic position Mastercard is rolling this out in India. In India and other countries that skipped the credit card phase (eg. China, Vietnam, Phillipines, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, etc), most non-cash payments are done directly via an e-wallet and OTP. This is an attempt by Mastercard to try and merge that payment flow into their environment, otherwise they face a low adoption rate in growth markets across Asia and Africa. Most vendors do not offer payment via card, and those that do will almost always also offer e-wallet as a payment method.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Visa and MasterCard getting steamrolled by central banks rolling out instant payment infra.