11 ms·

Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly (2024)

396 points by bilekas 1y ago

gchamonlive 1y ago
Related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44657517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44657517
everyone 1y ago
The fucked up thing is how they are enforcing archaic puritan ideals on the whole world. Acting as self appointed global censors. (Eg. not allowing adult games on Steam or Itch.io) The most confusing thing for me is why. I have read a few theories, but nothing convincing. What could be a strong enough motivator to do such a bizarre thing? Also we need governments to keep them in line. We cant have private corps acting as de facto censors like that. Its completely undemocratic and unethical.
- shortrounddev2 1y ago
  I've heard that Mastercard is running by evangelists
- greenavocado 1y ago
  This is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is what is preventing other payment processors from seamlessly getting in front of the customer, at every retail location, and online? If other payment processors existed and were allowed to flourish, we would not give a damn if these two blocked 90% of transaction types. Instead, something is suffocating innovation and personal freedom.
  - LaGrange 1y ago
    It's the very same payment processors stifling that "innovation," though. You can't invisible hand yourself out of this one.
  - skissane 1y ago
    > This is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is what is preventing other payment processors from seamlessly getting in front of the customer, at every retail location, and online? Here in Australia, most places accept UnionPay as well as Visa/Mastercard - but I don’t know if any local banks offer UnionPay cards, [0] I think this facility is really targeted at visitors from mainland China. And if a cafe takes UnionPay, that’s just because the cafe’s bank accepts it, and why would the cafe refuse if the bank allows it? A lot of places refuse to take Amex even though their bank does due to its high fees, but I don’t believe UnionPay has that issue. A lot of places take JCB, although that’s not as widely accepted as UnionPay is-in Australia, JCB is handled by Amex, so a lot of merchants will refuse JCB (even if their bank accepts it) due to the same concern about fees. Diners Club used to be accepted in Australia too, until they pulled out of the Australian market last year (I think overseas Diners Club cards are still accepted by some places as Discover, but few in Australia have ever heard of Discover) I used to have an Amex credit card issued by my bank, and I used to use it all the time-they’d kick back some of the extra merchant fee they got as extra frequent flyer points/miles - but Australian banks stopped issuing Amex when a regulatory change in 2017 significantly reduced how much money the issuing bank could make from them I don’t believe the situation for online retailers is hugely different-if your bank supports UnionPay/Amex/JCB for in-person transactions, they likely do for online transactions too [0] Bank of China’s Australian subsidiary apparently does issue UnionPay cards to Australian residents, but I doubt they’d get many customers except for immigrants from China-most Australians would never even consider applying, and they’ve made no attempt to market it to the average person
  - jdashg 1y ago
    Network effects and moats, sadly.
- skissane 1y ago
  > Acting as self appointed global censors. (Eg. not allowing adult games on Steam or Itch.io) It seems extra illogical when you think of how much money they make from subscription adult websites, even brothels-in countries that have legal brothels, I think you’ll find many of them accept credit cards, and Visa and Mastercard don’t appear to have a problem with that
  - habinero 1y ago
    Yeah, it's almost like porn isn't the problem, it's crime and chargebacks. All of those sites use high risk payment processors if they go through the major card networks.
    - mitthrowaway2 1y ago
      I sincerely doubt that people are issuing chargebacks for Steam store purchases.
      - skissane 1y ago
        Our son kept on buying games using Steam and then getting refunds for them in order to buy another one instead I told him to stop, because I was worried that too many refunds might result in Valve taking action against the account Still, why bother with a chargeback when the vendor has a generous refund policy?
      - habinero 1y ago
        I think you misread my comment. I wasn't saying they did.
- krapp 1y ago
  >What could be a strong enough motivator to do such a bizarre thing? Money. The only two motivators for a capitalist entity are making money and avoiding any government interference with making more money. They certainly aren't doing it out of Christian principles.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    > They certainly aren't doing it out of Christian principles. Said Evangelicals unfortunately know how to raise a stink, and with stinks comes bad press or, even worse, haphazard attempts to regulate stuff. Or, under Trump, it might draw the ire of the Dear Leader himself and suddenly even a company like MC/Visa finds itself in hot water. Either of these results is expensive, much more a cost risk than the profit of something like Itch is worth.
- netsharc 1y ago
  Something to do with https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/prosecuting-corporations-that-benefit-financially-from-human-trafficking.html https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/prosecutin... ? > In particular, the TVPA imposes criminal liability upon corporations that benefit financially from human trafficking in “reckless disregard” that their business ventures engaged in such exploitation. Not that digitally generated tits and asses have anything to do with human trafficking. But for a payment provider, porn sites are risky because their upload filters can miss content that violates these laws.. Russia's exclusion from Visa/Mastercard means cards there are on the Chinese networks and Russia's internal one.. it'd be interesting if adult content providers adopt these, bur I guess that means working with a Russian financial institute, which risks embargo from the US. Imagine that, your porn stars ending up on the US embargo list... Meanwhile, on the topic of human trafficking, Trump is panicking about being in Epstein's files...
- man4 1y ago
  [dead]
- habinero 1y ago
  Really? It's not difficult. Visa doesn't give a single shit about porn, porn generates a lot of fraud and chargebacks that cost them money. Most people I see complaining about how "unethical" it is are the ones who got kicked off the card networks for very good reasons like fraud or money laundering, or they got themselves on the MATCH list.
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago
  > The fucked up thing is how they are enforcing archaic puritan ideals on the whole world. Acting as self appointed global censors. (Eg. not allowing adult games on Steam or Itch.io) Banks, which constitute the majority of both payment networks, are not "enforcing archaic puritan ideals on the whole world" nor acting as "censors." > The most confusing thing for me is why. I have read a few theories, but nothing convincing. What could be a strong enough motivator to do such a bizarre thing? There is no need for theories regarding the inability to sell "adult games on Steam or Itch.io" as the answer is simple. Banks have identified this particular line of business to exceed their risk tolerance for any combination of: Chargebacks Fraud Money Laundering They have lost too much money in this particular domain. That's it.
robbiewxyz 1y ago
This is an important topic. I wonder what it is that makes duopoly so prevalent in tech e.g. Apple vs Google for mobile, Apple vs Microsoft for desktop, Uber vs Lyft for ride sharing. As for the linked article, it reads too much like AI slop for me to be bothered to analyze any of its specific points. If it's not AI, someone please correct me.
- shmerl 1y ago
  Toothless competition law enforcement doesn't help it.
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    Not just toothless, but also focusing on the wrong thing. Our antitrust laws haven't kept up with tech. They are still largely focused on consumer harm, which doesn't apply well when huge tech companies can offer stuff for free at a loss to snuff out any potential competition. Instead we need antitrust legislation to look at unfairly favoring one's own service, attack bundling, and prohibit exclusionary practices/blocking access to protocols (Private APIs, basically Apple). To use Apple as an example, we could legally mandate they provide APIs for third parties to access iMessage, AirDrop, SharePlay, etc. on their OSes so that third parties can offer accessories and services that compete on the same playing field as Apple's own accessories and services. Without mandating that openness, there can be no competitors. I can't make a smartwatch for iPhones and have it able to compete with the Apple Watch, Apple just simply gatekeeps and won't allow it - that should not be legal. Likewise for wireless headphones - no one else can make a set of wireless earbuds that can do device switching on Apple devices to the same level as AirPods, because Apple is gate keeping with proprietary tech. The non anti-trust aspect of it with tech is mostly network effects. For mobile, the more users, the more apps, the more valuable that platform gets, starts to incur high switching costs, devs neglect or ignore any potential new entry into the market because it's not profitable to build for it, and that momentum is very difficult to overcome without regulatory action.
speak_plainly 1y ago
Related: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/valve-confirms-credit-card-companies-pressured-it-to-delist-certain-adult-games-from-steam/ https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/valve-confirms-cr...
Aerroon 1y ago
Now this is a "tech company" problem I wish the EU would tackle. Why do these American companies get to decide what I'm allowed to purchase?
- jack1243star 1y ago
  I'm afraid the EU's stance on individual freedom is much worse though, if Visa/MasterCard were to originate from Europe.
topdan 1y ago
China is a footnote in the article, but their story here is interesting. China's WTO accession commitments in 2001 agreed to open its financial services sector, including payment card services, to foreign companies, except they never did. The US sued (presumably on behalf of VISA and MasterCard) and won in 2012: https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2012/july/us-wins-services-dispute-with-china https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-... MasterCard just started being full offered in 2024. VISA still has not. In the meantime, China built their own dominate offerings, essentially avoiding the duopoly.
- Telemakhos 1y ago
  Not only have they avoided the duopoly: they've avoided dependence on US tech and US financial surveillance/control. The EU depends on Visa/Mastercard for cross-border transactions especially, and they've never been able to get their act together well enough to establish a home-grown, EU-wide payment rails system that would give them independence from US processors should they need that independence. That's a lesson that Russia learned back in 2014 and remedied with its Mir rails.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - pzo 1y ago
    Too bad but good that Europe at least have SEPA for euro money transfer so not dependant on SWIFT and at least for mobile payment you have many systems in different European countries like e.g BLIK in Poland
    - Telemakhos 1y ago
      SEPA/SWIFT are not anything like the Visa/Mastercard duopoly: the former are bank-facing, while the latter are retail cusotmer-facing at point-of-sale. You do indeed have many systems in different countries in the EU. The problem is that they don't interoperate, and the rebooted EPI has had to scale back its goals. Its goal now is to offer a digital wallet and P2P transactions, with a card scheme only in the distant future.
pavlov 1y ago
The credit card duopoly is another instance where the EU has done a good job with regulation, but everyone just takes it for granted until they’re reminded how much worse the rest of the world has it. In the EU, card payment fees are capped at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. In the US, these interchange fees are about 2%. US businesses pay over $100 billion annually in these fees to card networks. If the fees were capped like in the EU, 85% of that money would stay with the businesses rather than feed the duopoly.
- itake 1y ago
  Is there information on EU vs US credit limits? How do the account fees compare between EU and US?
  - cbzoiav 1y ago
    Most credit cards in the UK at least (same cap) have no standard account fee. Those that do come with other perks / beyond the 'world elite' etc side Mastercard/visa aren't seeing that money - its going to the issuing bank. Bank accounts also generaly have no standard fees (and a lot of other things we take forgranted - faster payments (if I send money to a friend/business I can do it instantly for free without needing a third party solution), standing orders, direct debit etc. - that make banking far easier than in the US). There is also regulation in place that restricts predatory fee practices, getting customers into revolving debt and protection that makes card issuers liable for purchases (Section 75 - e.g. if I order something paying with my credit card and the merchant doesn't pay, the card issuer is legally liable / I can claim from them and its on them to get it from the merchant)
  - alexriddle 1y ago
    Other than Amex for airline points I don’t spend a penny on banking, all the standard services (eg transfers, bill payments, cash withdrawals, deposits) are free (in the U.K.) with no monthly fee.
  - lillecarl 1y ago
    I pay 3€ per month to "Nordea" for "unlimited" accounts and one VISA debit card.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
colesantiago 1y ago
So what is the solution to this duopoly except for crypto? I envision a third payment processor that isn't Visa or Mastercard and not even crypto. It isn't Stripe or PayPal either, something completely different. Thoughts?
- qznc 1y ago
  I hope Wero will spread rapidly in the EU. It is SEPA underneath.
  - sunaookami 1y ago
    They fumbled the launch badly. Every bank has to integrate it manually and they won't launch integration for merchants until next year.
- sdeframond 1y ago
  Hmm, Carte Bleue ? Edit: oh, that's Visa Europe now...
- drdrey 1y ago
  why not crypto? stablecoins could be a credible answer to this problem
  - altruios 1y ago
    Not with the new acts passed this last week. Only established players are in that space now (Also - this is going to get way worse now with fees devaluing the dollar that are now invisible to the average consumer).
    - gubicle 1y ago
      Which acts are you referring to? Care to elaborate?
      - scyclow 1y ago
mzitelli 1y ago
Brazil central bank introduced Pix a few years ago. It took over the country as the public basic infrastructure for money transfer. Totally free and instantaneous transactions between people and companies, available to all banks. Then, just last week, the US presidency launched an investigation considering Pix an unfair trade practice against the US. Actions like that may show the current direction of the US government is aligned on preserving status quo. But still, I wonder how impactful a public digital infrastructure for the dollar would be.
- kyrra 1y ago
  My understanding is that Pix took over because the Brazilian gov did transfer payments during covid and the (only?) way to get those payments was via Pix. So it forced everyone to start using it. And once people had more familiarity with Pix, merchants started pushing for it because it charges ACH level fees. The chargeback system (MED) is only so-so right now, but expected to get better. There is a lot to like about Pix, but the spec is extremely complicated and hard to implement.
  - forinti 1y ago
    I started using Pix, because it's the best way to do business with Chinese ecommerce sites. You don't have to give your credit card details and refunds go straight back to your account. In fact, it really impressed me that Aliexpress got it working before many Brazilian sites.
    - Anarch157a 1y ago
      There are plenty of companies in Brazil that offer PIX payments to foreign e-shops. Valve has been accepting PIX for some time now, for example.
      - plumeria 1y ago
        Can you suggest some?
frankfrank13 1y ago
in like 2011 I saw Daniel Radcliffe in How to succeed in business without really trying, and there's this line > And other men may carry cards, as members of the Diners that i did not understand until a few years ago someone mention the show, I remembered the line. And now at this moment, where this article reminded me of the Capital One acq. of Discover which happened to own Diner's, I can't help but think of this zombified credit card company limping along. Sign me up for the Diner's platinum, which I have to assume will get 5x points at the five-and-dime.
rprend 1y ago
Speaking as someone who tried (and failed) to build a competitor, merchants don’t actually care about the fees. We built a mobile payment system using bank transfer rails (ACH debits and FedNow credits) for ecom platforms. QR payments, just like AliPay, but for the US. We studied past failures at this same idea, and targeted specifically high ticket items (jewelry, luxury), because the fees are a bigger problem, and we could solve other problems with pay-by-bank like limiting botting/scalping and providing digital proof of purchase for resellers. We raised some money, built it, and demo’d it to dozens of different business. Instant clearing, way cheaper fees, bundle fraud insurance, digital proof of purchase. But it was an uphill battle- people didn’t want it. Merchants might say they care about the fees, but in practice they care about conversion and getting sales. If you want them to act you need to promise to bring in new revenue, not reduce their cost of existing revenue. Second problem is the rails. Your only option to debit is ACH, and ACH’s can be returned by the customer for any reason up to 60 days after the debit. Even with return-risk profiling, we had issues with Russian fraudsters using stolen SSNs to onboard as a merchant, do a “custom jewelry” sale for thousands, then as soon as the merchant gets paid out, ACH R10. The “merchant” has RTP’d that money away so when we try to debit it NSFs. RfPs on FedNow (if they ever get widely adopted) would solve this, because at least they’re irreversible. Until then the only competitor is crypto, but good luck getting US consumers to use a different currency at checkout without tanking your conversion (people have tried!!)
- zamadatix 1y ago
  Not being the #1 priority is very different than not caring at all. It may feel that way when trying to sell the alternative, but the merchant would still disagree at the end of the day. The alternative to new competition (which would probably also raise its rates as soon as it became popular enough) is regulation on the fees, as seen in Europe. This makes some sense as the problem is less with the capabilities of the systems which exist today and more with the size of the fees of established players. I don't see the US going down this route any time soon though. Most likely, in my mind, is the world (and maybe eventually the US) moves away from US based solutions in this space over the coming decades as other governments continue to consider this something to act on.
devnonymous 1y ago
The last section in the article speaks about RuPay but isn't this just one of the many implementations of UPI[1] ? In any case, imo, it is the start of the end for the duopoly and it is my hope that an truly open standard and protocol (unlike UPI) emerges (and no, the blockchain is not it -- crypto would just be accidental complexity in any potential solution). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
- umeshunni 1y ago
  RuPay isn't an implementation of UPI - it's an alternate payment network like STAR etc in the US. As a matter of fact, it's only recently that RuPay and UPI were connected: From 8 June 2022, RBI allowed the linking of RuPay credit cards with India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI). In the absence of a physical card, customers can use their credit limit through for transactions.
- vee-kay 1y ago
  RuPay is debit/credit card as domestic alternative to Visa and MasterCard, while UPI is the digital payments platform. Both technology stacks are owned and managed by NCPI (National Payments Corporation of India is an Umbrella Organisation that facilitates services like UPI Payments, Bharat BillPay, RuPay Cards, FASTag, NACH, etc.).
throwaway328 1y ago
Reading Barrett Brown's "My Glorious Defeats" at the moment, being reminded of that time Anonymous went after Visa, Mastercard, and others, in retaliation for them blocking payments to Wikileaks. An action the payment companies took extrajudicially at the behest of the US government because the US gov was't happy with Wikileaks. Wikileaks' crime was that they'd been very successful at getting true information to the public about what governments were doing. This was quite shocking to me (and at least some others, presumably) at the time, in 2011. I guess if we were taking it seriously, we would have been obliged to say: oh, how fundamentally authoritarian and anti-democratic. When progressives/democrat/left types shout "fascism!" now on account of something Trump did or said, the cynical part of me says that a lot of them probably just want Obama/Clinton/Biden-flavoured authoritarianism rather than "ugly" lower-middle-class Trumpian authoritarianism.
- hn_acc1 1y ago
  Blocking payments to wikileaks is on a totally different level than deporting citizens to random countries because they said something mean about you.
  - throwaway328 1y ago
    I agree, the deporting of citizens is much worse in real terms. They're both fundamentally anti-democratic, is what I meant. In both cases, the political / business class controlling the state is utilising private and public institutions to further their aims, with little to no care for law, morality, or even common decency.
- MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago
  Very many of us are quite critical of all authoritarianism, and don't feel like we've been represented by any presidential administration for our entire lives. Centrist liberalism isn't flashy or popular, though, and it doesn't spawn many angry rallying cries or outrage that goes viral, so you'd think that we don't exist. The current flavor of authoritarianism is quite bad, though, and does distastefully wear its hypocrisy on its sleeves.
DmitryO 1y ago
Mir works in around 10 countries not bad for a start
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago
  Yep, when financial instruments are being used as sanctions, countries seek alternatives.
kristofferR 1y ago
Not a total duopoly, almost all cards in Norway are dual network - the local network BankAxept + Visa/Mastercard, the cheapest option (BankAxept) is selected invisibly for the users when possible while the cards still works flawlessly all places that only accept Visa/Mastercard globally. Big businesses only pay 0.0475% + ~0.003 USD per transaction for BankAxept: https://bankaxept.no/hjelp/priser-for-bankaxept https://bankaxept.no/hjelp/priser-for-bankaxept 8/10 card transactions in Norway are BankAxept. I think many other countries have similar solutions, and if not they should implement them. It won't end the duopoly, but it does decrease the consequences.
- Marsymars 1y ago
  Canada has something similar (Interac), but the transaction marketshare has been steadily eroding to credit cards. (Since credit cards offer credit + credit/cashback, and extra fees for paying by credit cards are very rare.)
  - nayuki 1y ago
    Interac is a debit network in Canada, and the merchant fees are impressively low. They're generally under $0.10 as a flat fee, not a percentage (credit cards would cost the merchant around 2%). https://www.interac.ca/en/payments/business/understanding-fees/ https://www.interac.ca/en/payments/business/understanding-fe... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac One consequence of the flat fee is that at some retail stores, if you pay by debit, you can ask for "cash back". For example, if you buy $20 of groceries and ask for $100 cash back, the cashier will charge $120 to your debit card, you will have fully paid for your groceries, and the cashier will give you $100 in paper money as if he were an ATM. Obviously, "cash back" is a terrible idea if the merchant allowed the customer to pay by credit card.
    - sandos 1y ago
      Cash back was/is a thing in Sweden for a long time, but I have not actually seen it used in ages, or mentioned. We simply don't use cash much these days.
Fanofilm 1y ago
We must enable competition in credit cards and payment systems with POSes.
iamsanteri 1y ago
This article feels machine generated
hopelite 1y ago
I’ve always wondered how that is even really possible, especially today … ignoring the likely bribery, aka lobbying. For example, in Germany there is something called an EC patent network (there are others in different European countries), they process what are effectively debit card payments like would be done on the visa network. I do not see a reason other than corruption and maybe lack of an initiative, for all of Europe to e.g., put all of Visa, MC, Amex, etc out of business by having a universally payment processing network standard for all payment types. It is effectively nothing different than the BPE and Mint making currency, why could the government not have a universal payment processing system for all transactions in America?
zaptheimpaler 1y ago
India has had UPI since 2016 now and recently overtook Visa and Mastercards global transaction volume with 650 million transactions per day [1]. These payment processors seem to be basically levying a 1-3% tax on a nations entire GDP and enforcing their own ideas of what transactions should or shouldn't be allowed. With UPI and Pix etc. paving the way and showing its possible, it actually sounds insane to give so much money and power to some private company that provides a worse product, for nation-critical infrastructure. [1] https://organiser.org/2025/07/22/304055/bharat/a-fintech-revolution-rooted-in-inclusion-how-indian-upi-is-now-the-worlds-most-used-digital-payment-system/ https://organiser.org/2025/07/22/304055/bharat/a-fintech-rev...
- akvadrako 1y ago
  The fees are capped at 0.3% in EU and most countries have their own systems that are more popular. The reason the credit card monopolies exist is they work globally.
  - demaga 1y ago
    But vast majority of people make most their transactions domestically. Why cater for the minority? Also, both can exist.
    - malthaus 1y ago
      the vast majority of people doesn't care about payment technology/channels, they just want it to be convenient and work and not having to context shift between "if i pay on vacation i need to use this card, if i pay this guy i need to use this app, etc"
- FlyingSnake 1y ago
  India also has the RuPay system which is a direct competitor to Visa/Mastercard and it has long overtaken Visa as the top provider. It’s also available in many global markets like SEA, GCC and others.
  - 1y ago
sub7 1y ago
I spend many months in India every year and I've been paying with RuPay and UPI for the past 5 years exclusively. It works, and India saved 1-2% of all digital payments going to some leechy foreign middlemen who do nothing. V/M would love to "but fraud" us sadly the actual payment fraud % is much lower than claimed and easily dealt with by the issuing/receiving banks.
MinimalAction 1y ago
India did great by introducing UPI and subsequently RuPay to face these duopoly behemoths. UPI replaced queues to ATMs in general since one could typically scan a QR code and have the amount transferred in seconds. This is far more modern than ACH equivalents US has. But the downside is that it is a debit transaction; if you're scammed, there is usually no way to retrieve it unless a court orders so.
- LeoWattenberg 1y ago
  It feels broadly desirable to have a court decide what is and isn't a scam and perhaps hand out punishment instead of having a private entity act as the judge and executioner.
  - MinimalAction 1y ago
    Absolutely. Except that it is much harder to raise a dispute with UPI than, say, with a Chase card that used Visa network. But, I much prefer the national offerings to a private company charging as much as 0.5% of transaction value for doing almost nothing.
- vee-kay 1y ago
  I work in Banking, and RBI (India's Banking Regulatory organization) has enforced stringent norms for UPI transactions behind the scenes, especially for chargebacks/disputes, to ensure that the UPI transactions are processed faster and easier by the Banks and intermediary processors, with the aim that customers get transparency and accountability in digital payments. So stringent in fact, that RBI shut down PayTM Payments Bank which was most popular market leader in that sector, because PayTM flouted the mandated norms for digital payments and payments banking. That is also beside the fact that UPI platform has high uptime and rarely faces any outages.
- rldjbpin 1y ago
  > But the downside is that it is a debit transaction; if you're scammed, there is usually no way to retrieve it unless a court orders so. in a practical sense, UPI is primarily positioned to facilitate digital transactions in a cash-first economy. while it would be nice to have safeguards against scams, especially as qr codes become more ubiquitous by the day. however, paying with cash did not have any inherent safety features either, so it is equivalent in terms of risk imho. although i do have a personal anecdote of getting a payment reversed when a pos double charged me. i did have receipts and had to wait a few weeks, but in theory it is possible in regular scenarios (i.e. when it is between an individual and a business).
h4kunamata 1y ago
I have gone full on cash-only mode, people would freak out with the amount of fees they pay without knowing it. I only have debit card, no credit card at all, in many places AUD$0.30-$0.50c is added to the goods price on debit cards. With cash, many places are offering 5-15% off when buying with cash only which is awesome. If you are a gamer, you most have heard within the last 3-4 days now that Steam, Itch.io and others removed +18 games from their store because of a psycho Australian activists group called Collective Shout, who used words like rpe, child prngrphy forcing Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and a Japanese payment system to force those games stores to remove the games or they wouldn't have a processing payment. Thanks to Visa/MasterCard monopoly, everybody was forced to do it. Many players don't even have +18 games filter enabled, for us in general this isn't about the +18 games but about US payment systems telling us what we can buy or not. Visa is getting its ass busted in Japan already with a Japanese politician joining the fight with gamers. Dedollarisation has never been this strong, countries are already doing international trades using their own currency over the US dollar. I am not even getting into BRICS. It is not a surprise that the US isn't happy with PIX in Brazil, it is a huge country, imagine all the money Visa/MasterCard are no longer making. Based on market data, it suggest an ESTIMATE around USD2.5-USD4B in 2024-2025 revenue lost lmao The US is encountering the perfect storm!
- tracker1 1y ago
  The risk of deplatforming for many reasons should be deeply concerning all around. It's definitely concerning to say the least.
CalChris 1y ago
> According to the Federal Reserve, over 100 billion debit card payments were made in 2021, compared to 51 billion credit card payments. In terms of transaction value, debit cards processed $4.6 trillion, while credit cards reached $4.9 trillion, indicating that credit transactions tend to be about double in average value. Interesting that debit cards are twice the swipes that credit cards are. Didn't know that. I wore the debit card hair shirt for decades. They have a ~0.73% transaction cost vs 1.5% to 3.5% for credit card swipes. But I never once got any benefit from this lower transaction cost. So now I have the Trifecta and a Savor. I work my credit cards aggressively and use their benefits to exceed their annual fees before even accounting for 3% cash back and Membership Reward Points and signup bonuses. I am winning on this. Consequently someone else must be losing. It seems to me that the debit card users are subsidizing me.
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
  Just a quick note, no one has ever become wealthy from their credit card rewards. I don’t know what your system is, but it sounds like you enjoy it, so you do you. And yes. Cash and debit cards have always subsidized credit.
  - CalChris 1y ago
    The final straw was a trip to the UK. My debit card had foreign transaction fees and then I was waiting in the cattle call area for a BA flight seeing people significantly more relaxed coming out of airport lounges. My system, so to speak, is really nothing. Sign up bonuses, (American Express wanted me bad), read the fine print and work the benefits, use the right card for the given transaction. Does this make sense? No, it does not. Yet here we are. I've always detested this stuff yet merchants are forcing me to take this benefit. So I take it. FWIW, 99% of my transactions are with my phone. So there is no flex involved. My iPhone makes the transaction virtually the same as with a debit card.
  - Alupis 1y ago
    It's often about getting benefits out of transactions you're going to make regardless of how you pay for it. If you're going to buy groceries, does it matter if you pay cash (debit) or use a credit card? The credit card gives you some percentage of that purchase back in rewards, which you then redeem on other things such as airfare, hotels, dinner out, uber, etc. Think of it like a coupon that's valid everywhere, and every time you use it, a tiny sum is deposited into a savings account. Pay it off at the end of the month and it's pretty much free money. Credit cards also have better cardholder protections, security and safety than using debit cards or cash. Some people use credit cards for every purchase and become highly skilled at maximizing card rewards. This is also why many will say card fees don't matter - you often accrue enough rewards to pay for the fee itself plus lots more, making the fee irrelevant. The fee is there to compel you to use the card often enough to exceed the fee's value.
BomberFish 1y ago
Here in Canada, Interac has somewhat displaced that (even though most people still use Visa/Mastercard for transactions with businesses). That being said, it's especially useful for transfers between individuals as the transaction fees are relatively low, which makes services like PayPal or Cash App much less appealing domestically.
srivmo 1y ago
The article underplays the role stablecoins are going to play in the next 10 years. Compared to 6+ intermediaries in a standard SWIFT payment, a cross-border payment facilitated by USDC/USDT just needs 2 players - an on-ramp provider and an off-ramp provider. The result ⇒ insanely low costs, much lesser than 1-5% typically charged by a SWIFT payment. This network is sustainable and running on established blockchains which have been running for over a decade now - ETH. This network somehow needs to penetrate domestically too - something like a UPI. That moment is going to be a watershed moment that should break this duopoly. PS: Its a separate matter altogether that Visa/Mastercard are trying to gel well into this new age infrastructure
- dotwaffle 1y ago
  > Compared to 6+ intermediaries in a standard SWIFT payment Huh? I think the message format in ISO20022 can only 3 intermediaries before having to resort to more complex mechanisms. Most SWIFT payments have 0 or 1 intermediaries.
  - elric 1y ago
    Not sure what OP is referring to either. I guess you could consider SWIFT to be an intermediary instead of a delivery mechanism? But even that doesn't add up to 6+.
bahularora 1y ago
What I find interesting is how India’s financial inclusion push under the Jan Dhan Yojana (National Financial Inclusion Mission) led to unexpected consequences. The government aimed to offer zero-cost bank accounts to extremely low-income citizens and needed zero cost debit cards to make them functional. Rumor has it they asked Visa and Mastercard to waive fees and both declined. Even Indian banks reportedly pushed back. So India doubled down on RuPay, its domestic card network. What started as a fallback turned into a fintech revolution. Over 559 million bank accounts were opened under this mission, most powered by RuPay. Ironically, if Visa or Mastercard had agreed, RuPay might never have taken off.
RataNova 1y ago
And how much of Visa and Mastercard's dominance boils down to a combination of early network effects and entrenched relationships with banks, rather than pure technological innovation
gsky 1y ago
Any country that depends on American financial system will pay a price. Which is why big nations are trying to protect themselves.
- RataNova 1y ago
  It's less about ideology and more about sovereignty
mac-monet 1y ago
Since this is adjacent to crypto, I came in here expecting some kind of hateful things being said about it, but seems like a fairly productive and honest discussion, something that is usually lost as soon as the c-word is mentioned. Despite all of the issues that are within the crypto world, I do think stablecoins are a fantastic use-case that most of us should be able to get behind to break this duopoly. With some oversight/proofs of solvency for the issuers, I hope they can become the dominant payment method. I can say from experience, the fact that I can easily pay friends and also receive yield on my holdings is such a nice experience, especially considering the inflationary environment we're in currently.
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
I really wish of some decent way of getting money as a teenager without doing some insane kyc or having people buy crypto just to buy my stuff I guess. I know that anonymous money could be used for funding of bad stuff like terrorism and tax evasion but its just a mess that I can't get money but there are loopholes too :/ KYC should be made easier for teens and also I must admit, from what I see, remittances/cross country payments are just so much of an hassle but crypto sucks as a currency too in many aspects mainly on how to convert crypto <-> cash non kyc way
n4r9 1y ago
> How is it possible that, in the era of global competition, such a large market niche is completely dominated by only two players? This is far from atypical! If you're interested in the prevalence and impact of market consolidation, Matt Stoller talks about it a lot in his BIG newsletter: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/
RamblingCTO 1y ago
Where are all the "yes monopolies are good, thiel said so" people now?

396 points by bilekas 1y ago

Related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44657517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44657517

The fucked up thing is how they are enforcing archaic puritan ideals on the whole world. Acting as self appointed global censors. (Eg. not allowing adult games on Steam or Itch.io) The most confusing thing for me is why. I have read a few theories, but nothing convincing. What could be a strong enough motivator to do such a bizarre thing? Also we need governments to keep them in line. We cant have private corps acting as de facto censors like that. Its completely undemocratic and unethical.

shortrounddev2 1y ago
I've heard that Mastercard is running by evangelists
greenavocado 1y ago
This is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is what is preventing other payment processors from seamlessly getting in front of the customer, at every retail location, and online? If other payment processors existed and were allowed to flourish, we would not give a damn if these two blocked 90% of transaction types. Instead, something is suffocating innovation and personal freedom.
- LaGrange 1y ago
  It's the very same payment processors stifling that "innovation," though. You can't invisible hand yourself out of this one.
- skissane 1y ago
  > This is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is what is preventing other payment processors from seamlessly getting in front of the customer, at every retail location, and online? Here in Australia, most places accept UnionPay as well as Visa/Mastercard - but I don’t know if any local banks offer UnionPay cards, [0] I think this facility is really targeted at visitors from mainland China. And if a cafe takes UnionPay, that’s just because the cafe’s bank accepts it, and why would the cafe refuse if the bank allows it? A lot of places refuse to take Amex even though their bank does due to its high fees, but I don’t believe UnionPay has that issue. A lot of places take JCB, although that’s not as widely accepted as UnionPay is-in Australia, JCB is handled by Amex, so a lot of merchants will refuse JCB (even if their bank accepts it) due to the same concern about fees. Diners Club used to be accepted in Australia too, until they pulled out of the Australian market last year (I think overseas Diners Club cards are still accepted by some places as Discover, but few in Australia have ever heard of Discover) I used to have an Amex credit card issued by my bank, and I used to use it all the time-they’d kick back some of the extra merchant fee they got as extra frequent flyer points/miles - but Australian banks stopped issuing Amex when a regulatory change in 2017 significantly reduced how much money the issuing bank could make from them I don’t believe the situation for online retailers is hugely different-if your bank supports UnionPay/Amex/JCB for in-person transactions, they likely do for online transactions too [0] Bank of China’s Australian subsidiary apparently does issue UnionPay cards to Australian residents, but I doubt they’d get many customers except for immigrants from China-most Australians would never even consider applying, and they’ve made no attempt to market it to the average person
- jdashg 1y ago
  Network effects and moats, sadly.
skissane 1y ago
> Acting as self appointed global censors. (Eg. not allowing adult games on Steam or Itch.io) It seems extra illogical when you think of how much money they make from subscription adult websites, even brothels-in countries that have legal brothels, I think you’ll find many of them accept credit cards, and Visa and Mastercard don’t appear to have a problem with that
- habinero 1y ago
  Yeah, it's almost like porn isn't the problem, it's crime and chargebacks. All of those sites use high risk payment processors if they go through the major card networks.
  - mitthrowaway2 1y ago
    I sincerely doubt that people are issuing chargebacks for Steam store purchases.
    - skissane 1y ago
      Our son kept on buying games using Steam and then getting refunds for them in order to buy another one instead I told him to stop, because I was worried that too many refunds might result in Valve taking action against the account Still, why bother with a chargeback when the vendor has a generous refund policy?
    - habinero 1y ago
      I think you misread my comment. I wasn't saying they did.
krapp 1y ago
>What could be a strong enough motivator to do such a bizarre thing? Money. The only two motivators for a capitalist entity are making money and avoiding any government interference with making more money. They certainly aren't doing it out of Christian principles.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  > They certainly aren't doing it out of Christian principles. Said Evangelicals unfortunately know how to raise a stink, and with stinks comes bad press or, even worse, haphazard attempts to regulate stuff. Or, under Trump, it might draw the ire of the Dear Leader himself and suddenly even a company like MC/Visa finds itself in hot water. Either of these results is expensive, much more a cost risk than the profit of something like Itch is worth.
netsharc 1y ago
Something to do with https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/prosecuting-corporations-that-benefit-financially-from-human-trafficking.html https://www.pillsburylaw.com/en/news-and-insights/prosecutin... ? > In particular, the TVPA imposes criminal liability upon corporations that benefit financially from human trafficking in “reckless disregard” that their business ventures engaged in such exploitation. Not that digitally generated tits and asses have anything to do with human trafficking. But for a payment provider, porn sites are risky because their upload filters can miss content that violates these laws.. Russia's exclusion from Visa/Mastercard means cards there are on the Chinese networks and Russia's internal one.. it'd be interesting if adult content providers adopt these, bur I guess that means working with a Russian financial institute, which risks embargo from the US. Imagine that, your porn stars ending up on the US embargo list... Meanwhile, on the topic of human trafficking, Trump is panicking about being in Epstein's files...
man4 1y ago
[dead]
habinero 1y ago
Really? It's not difficult. Visa doesn't give a single shit about porn, porn generates a lot of fraud and chargebacks that cost them money. Most people I see complaining about how "unethical" it is are the ones who got kicked off the card networks for very good reasons like fraud or money laundering, or they got themselves on the MATCH list.
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
> The fucked up thing is how they are enforcing archaic puritan ideals on the whole world. Acting as self appointed global censors. (Eg. not allowing adult games on Steam or Itch.io) Banks, which constitute the majority of both payment networks, are not "enforcing archaic puritan ideals on the whole world" nor acting as "censors." > The most confusing thing for me is why. I have read a few theories, but nothing convincing. What could be a strong enough motivator to do such a bizarre thing? There is no need for theories regarding the inability to sell "adult games on Steam or Itch.io" as the answer is simple. Banks have identified this particular line of business to exceed their risk tolerance for any combination of: Chargebacks Fraud Money Laundering They have lost too much money in this particular domain. That's it.

robbiewxyz 1y ago

This is an important topic. I wonder what it is that makes duopoly so prevalent in tech e.g. Apple vs Google for mobile, Apple vs Microsoft for desktop, Uber vs Lyft for ride sharing. As for the linked article, it reads too much like AI slop for me to be bothered to analyze any of its specific points. If it's not AI, someone please correct me.

shmerl 1y ago
Toothless competition law enforcement doesn't help it.
- thewebguyd 1y ago
  Not just toothless, but also focusing on the wrong thing. Our antitrust laws haven't kept up with tech. They are still largely focused on consumer harm, which doesn't apply well when huge tech companies can offer stuff for free at a loss to snuff out any potential competition. Instead we need antitrust legislation to look at unfairly favoring one's own service, attack bundling, and prohibit exclusionary practices/blocking access to protocols (Private APIs, basically Apple). To use Apple as an example, we could legally mandate they provide APIs for third parties to access iMessage, AirDrop, SharePlay, etc. on their OSes so that third parties can offer accessories and services that compete on the same playing field as Apple's own accessories and services. Without mandating that openness, there can be no competitors. I can't make a smartwatch for iPhones and have it able to compete with the Apple Watch, Apple just simply gatekeeps and won't allow it - that should not be legal. Likewise for wireless headphones - no one else can make a set of wireless earbuds that can do device switching on Apple devices to the same level as AirPods, because Apple is gate keeping with proprietary tech. The non anti-trust aspect of it with tech is mostly network effects. For mobile, the more users, the more apps, the more valuable that platform gets, starts to incur high switching costs, devs neglect or ignore any potential new entry into the market because it's not profitable to build for it, and that momentum is very difficult to overcome without regulatory action.

speak_plainly 1y ago

Related: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/valve-confirms-credit-card-companies-pressured-it-to-delist-certain-adult-games-from-steam/ https://www.pcgamer.com/software/platforms/valve-confirms-cr...

Aerroon 1y ago

Now this is a "tech company" problem I wish the EU would tackle. Why do these American companies get to decide what I'm allowed to purchase?

jack1243star 1y ago
I'm afraid the EU's stance on individual freedom is much worse though, if Visa/MasterCard were to originate from Europe.

topdan 1y ago

China is a footnote in the article, but their story here is interesting. China's WTO accession commitments in 2001 agreed to open its financial services sector, including payment card services, to foreign companies, except they never did. The US sued (presumably on behalf of VISA and MasterCard) and won in 2012: https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2012/july/us-wins-services-dispute-with-china https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-... MasterCard just started being full offered in 2024. VISA still has not. In the meantime, China built their own dominate offerings, essentially avoiding the duopoly.

Telemakhos 1y ago
Not only have they avoided the duopoly: they've avoided dependence on US tech and US financial surveillance/control. The EU depends on Visa/Mastercard for cross-border transactions especially, and they've never been able to get their act together well enough to establish a home-grown, EU-wide payment rails system that would give them independence from US processors should they need that independence. That's a lesson that Russia learned back in 2014 and remedied with its Mir rails.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- pzo 1y ago
  Too bad but good that Europe at least have SEPA for euro money transfer so not dependant on SWIFT and at least for mobile payment you have many systems in different European countries like e.g BLIK in Poland
  - Telemakhos 1y ago
    SEPA/SWIFT are not anything like the Visa/Mastercard duopoly: the former are bank-facing, while the latter are retail cusotmer-facing at point-of-sale. You do indeed have many systems in different countries in the EU. The problem is that they don't interoperate, and the rebooted EPI has had to scale back its goals. Its goal now is to offer a digital wallet and P2P transactions, with a card scheme only in the distant future.

pavlov 1y ago

The credit card duopoly is another instance where the EU has done a good job with regulation, but everyone just takes it for granted until they’re reminded how much worse the rest of the world has it. In the EU, card payment fees are capped at 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. In the US, these interchange fees are about 2%. US businesses pay over $100 billion annually in these fees to card networks. If the fees were capped like in the EU, 85% of that money would stay with the businesses rather than feed the duopoly.

itake 1y ago
Is there information on EU vs US credit limits? How do the account fees compare between EU and US?
- cbzoiav 1y ago
  Most credit cards in the UK at least (same cap) have no standard account fee. Those that do come with other perks / beyond the 'world elite' etc side Mastercard/visa aren't seeing that money - its going to the issuing bank. Bank accounts also generaly have no standard fees (and a lot of other things we take forgranted - faster payments (if I send money to a friend/business I can do it instantly for free without needing a third party solution), standing orders, direct debit etc. - that make banking far easier than in the US). There is also regulation in place that restricts predatory fee practices, getting customers into revolving debt and protection that makes card issuers liable for purchases (Section 75 - e.g. if I order something paying with my credit card and the merchant doesn't pay, the card issuer is legally liable / I can claim from them and its on them to get it from the merchant)
- alexriddle 1y ago
  Other than Amex for airline points I don’t spend a penny on banking, all the standard services (eg transfers, bill payments, cash withdrawals, deposits) are free (in the U.K.) with no monthly fee.
- lillecarl 1y ago
  I pay 3€ per month to "Nordea" for "unlimited" accounts and one VISA debit card.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

colesantiago 1y ago

So what is the solution to this duopoly except for crypto? I envision a third payment processor that isn't Visa or Mastercard and not even crypto. It isn't Stripe or PayPal either, something completely different. Thoughts?

qznc 1y ago
I hope Wero will spread rapidly in the EU. It is SEPA underneath.
- sunaookami 1y ago
  They fumbled the launch badly. Every bank has to integrate it manually and they won't launch integration for merchants until next year.
sdeframond 1y ago
Hmm, Carte Bleue ? Edit: oh, that's Visa Europe now...
drdrey 1y ago
why not crypto? stablecoins could be a credible answer to this problem
- altruios 1y ago
  Not with the new acts passed this last week. Only established players are in that space now (Also - this is going to get way worse now with fees devaluing the dollar that are now invisible to the average consumer).
  - gubicle 1y ago
    Which acts are you referring to? Care to elaborate?
    - scyclow 1y ago

mzitelli 1y ago

Brazil central bank introduced Pix a few years ago. It took over the country as the public basic infrastructure for money transfer. Totally free and instantaneous transactions between people and companies, available to all banks. Then, just last week, the US presidency launched an investigation considering Pix an unfair trade practice against the US. Actions like that may show the current direction of the US government is aligned on preserving status quo. But still, I wonder how impactful a public digital infrastructure for the dollar would be.

kyrra 1y ago
My understanding is that Pix took over because the Brazilian gov did transfer payments during covid and the (only?) way to get those payments was via Pix. So it forced everyone to start using it. And once people had more familiarity with Pix, merchants started pushing for it because it charges ACH level fees. The chargeback system (MED) is only so-so right now, but expected to get better. There is a lot to like about Pix, but the spec is extremely complicated and hard to implement.
- forinti 1y ago
  I started using Pix, because it's the best way to do business with Chinese ecommerce sites. You don't have to give your credit card details and refunds go straight back to your account. In fact, it really impressed me that Aliexpress got it working before many Brazilian sites.
  - Anarch157a 1y ago
    There are plenty of companies in Brazil that offer PIX payments to foreign e-shops. Valve has been accepting PIX for some time now, for example.
    - plumeria 1y ago
      Can you suggest some?

frankfrank13 1y ago

in like 2011 I saw Daniel Radcliffe in How to succeed in business without really trying, and there's this line > And other men may carry cards, as members of the Diners that i did not understand until a few years ago someone mention the show, I remembered the line. And now at this moment, where this article reminded me of the Capital One acq. of Discover which happened to own Diner's, I can't help but think of this zombified credit card company limping along. Sign me up for the Diner's platinum, which I have to assume will get 5x points at the five-and-dime.

rprend 1y ago

Speaking as someone who tried (and failed) to build a competitor, merchants don’t actually care about the fees. We built a mobile payment system using bank transfer rails (ACH debits and FedNow credits) for ecom platforms. QR payments, just like AliPay, but for the US. We studied past failures at this same idea, and targeted specifically high ticket items (jewelry, luxury), because the fees are a bigger problem, and we could solve other problems with pay-by-bank like limiting botting/scalping and providing digital proof of purchase for resellers. We raised some money, built it, and demo’d it to dozens of different business. Instant clearing, way cheaper fees, bundle fraud insurance, digital proof of purchase. But it was an uphill battle- people didn’t want it. Merchants might say they care about the fees, but in practice they care about conversion and getting sales. If you want them to act you need to promise to bring in new revenue, not reduce their cost of existing revenue. Second problem is the rails. Your only option to debit is ACH, and ACH’s can be returned by the customer for any reason up to 60 days after the debit. Even with return-risk profiling, we had issues with Russian fraudsters using stolen SSNs to onboard as a merchant, do a “custom jewelry” sale for thousands, then as soon as the merchant gets paid out, ACH R10. The “merchant” has RTP’d that money away so when we try to debit it NSFs. RfPs on FedNow (if they ever get widely adopted) would solve this, because at least they’re irreversible. Until then the only competitor is crypto, but good luck getting US consumers to use a different currency at checkout without tanking your conversion (people have tried!!)

zamadatix 1y ago
Not being the #1 priority is very different than not caring at all. It may feel that way when trying to sell the alternative, but the merchant would still disagree at the end of the day. The alternative to new competition (which would probably also raise its rates as soon as it became popular enough) is regulation on the fees, as seen in Europe. This makes some sense as the problem is less with the capabilities of the systems which exist today and more with the size of the fees of established players. I don't see the US going down this route any time soon though. Most likely, in my mind, is the world (and maybe eventually the US) moves away from US based solutions in this space over the coming decades as other governments continue to consider this something to act on.

devnonymous 1y ago

The last section in the article speaks about RuPay but isn't this just one of the many implementations of UPI[1] ? In any case, imo, it is the start of the end for the duopoly and it is my hope that an truly open standard and protocol (unlike UPI) emerges (and no, the blockchain is not it -- crypto would just be accidental complexity in any potential solution). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface

umeshunni 1y ago
RuPay isn't an implementation of UPI - it's an alternate payment network like STAR etc in the US. As a matter of fact, it's only recently that RuPay and UPI were connected: From 8 June 2022, RBI allowed the linking of RuPay credit cards with India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI). In the absence of a physical card, customers can use their credit limit through for transactions.
vee-kay 1y ago
RuPay is debit/credit card as domestic alternative to Visa and MasterCard, while UPI is the digital payments platform. Both technology stacks are owned and managed by NCPI (National Payments Corporation of India is an Umbrella Organisation that facilitates services like UPI Payments, Bharat BillPay, RuPay Cards, FASTag, NACH, etc.).

throwaway328 1y ago

Reading Barrett Brown's "My Glorious Defeats" at the moment, being reminded of that time Anonymous went after Visa, Mastercard, and others, in retaliation for them blocking payments to Wikileaks. An action the payment companies took extrajudicially at the behest of the US government because the US gov was't happy with Wikileaks. Wikileaks' crime was that they'd been very successful at getting true information to the public about what governments were doing. This was quite shocking to me (and at least some others, presumably) at the time, in 2011. I guess if we were taking it seriously, we would have been obliged to say: oh, how fundamentally authoritarian and anti-democratic. When progressives/democrat/left types shout "fascism!" now on account of something Trump did or said, the cynical part of me says that a lot of them probably just want Obama/Clinton/Biden-flavoured authoritarianism rather than "ugly" lower-middle-class Trumpian authoritarianism.

hn_acc1 1y ago
Blocking payments to wikileaks is on a totally different level than deporting citizens to random countries because they said something mean about you.
- throwaway328 1y ago
  I agree, the deporting of citizens is much worse in real terms. They're both fundamentally anti-democratic, is what I meant. In both cases, the political / business class controlling the state is utilising private and public institutions to further their aims, with little to no care for law, morality, or even common decency.
MyOutfitIsVague 1y ago
Very many of us are quite critical of all authoritarianism, and don't feel like we've been represented by any presidential administration for our entire lives. Centrist liberalism isn't flashy or popular, though, and it doesn't spawn many angry rallying cries or outrage that goes viral, so you'd think that we don't exist. The current flavor of authoritarianism is quite bad, though, and does distastefully wear its hypocrisy on its sleeves.

DmitryO 1y ago

Mir works in around 10 countries not bad for a start

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ajsnigrutin 1y ago
Yep, when financial instruments are being used as sanctions, countries seek alternatives.

kristofferR 1y ago

Not a total duopoly, almost all cards in Norway are dual network - the local network BankAxept + Visa/Mastercard, the cheapest option (BankAxept) is selected invisibly for the users when possible while the cards still works flawlessly all places that only accept Visa/Mastercard globally. Big businesses only pay 0.0475% + ~0.003 USD per transaction for BankAxept: https://bankaxept.no/hjelp/priser-for-bankaxept https://bankaxept.no/hjelp/priser-for-bankaxept 8/10 card transactions in Norway are BankAxept. I think many other countries have similar solutions, and if not they should implement them. It won't end the duopoly, but it does decrease the consequences.

Marsymars 1y ago
Canada has something similar (Interac), but the transaction marketshare has been steadily eroding to credit cards. (Since credit cards offer credit + credit/cashback, and extra fees for paying by credit cards are very rare.)
- nayuki 1y ago
  Interac is a debit network in Canada, and the merchant fees are impressively low. They're generally under $0.10 as a flat fee, not a percentage (credit cards would cost the merchant around 2%). https://www.interac.ca/en/payments/business/understanding-fees/ https://www.interac.ca/en/payments/business/understanding-fe... , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac One consequence of the flat fee is that at some retail stores, if you pay by debit, you can ask for "cash back". For example, if you buy $20 of groceries and ask for $100 cash back, the cashier will charge $120 to your debit card, you will have fully paid for your groceries, and the cashier will give you $100 in paper money as if he were an ATM. Obviously, "cash back" is a terrible idea if the merchant allowed the customer to pay by credit card.
  - sandos 1y ago
    Cash back was/is a thing in Sweden for a long time, but I have not actually seen it used in ages, or mentioned. We simply don't use cash much these days.

Fanofilm 1y ago

We must enable competition in credit cards and payment systems with POSes.

iamsanteri 1y ago

This article feels machine generated

hopelite 1y ago

I’ve always wondered how that is even really possible, especially today … ignoring the likely bribery, aka lobbying. For example, in Germany there is something called an EC patent network (there are others in different European countries), they process what are effectively debit card payments like would be done on the visa network. I do not see a reason other than corruption and maybe lack of an initiative, for all of Europe to e.g., put all of Visa, MC, Amex, etc out of business by having a universally payment processing network standard for all payment types. It is effectively nothing different than the BPE and Mint making currency, why could the government not have a universal payment processing system for all transactions in America?

zaptheimpaler 1y ago

India has had UPI since 2016 now and recently overtook Visa and Mastercards global transaction volume with 650 million transactions per day [1]. These payment processors seem to be basically levying a 1-3% tax on a nations entire GDP and enforcing their own ideas of what transactions should or shouldn't be allowed. With UPI and Pix etc. paving the way and showing its possible, it actually sounds insane to give so much money and power to some private company that provides a worse product, for nation-critical infrastructure. [1] https://organiser.org/2025/07/22/304055/bharat/a-fintech-revolution-rooted-in-inclusion-how-indian-upi-is-now-the-worlds-most-used-digital-payment-system/ https://organiser.org/2025/07/22/304055/bharat/a-fintech-rev...

akvadrako 1y ago
The fees are capped at 0.3% in EU and most countries have their own systems that are more popular. The reason the credit card monopolies exist is they work globally.
- demaga 1y ago
  But vast majority of people make most their transactions domestically. Why cater for the minority? Also, both can exist.
  - malthaus 1y ago
    the vast majority of people doesn't care about payment technology/channels, they just want it to be convenient and work and not having to context shift between "if i pay on vacation i need to use this card, if i pay this guy i need to use this app, etc"
FlyingSnake 1y ago
India also has the RuPay system which is a direct competitor to Visa/Mastercard and it has long overtaken Visa as the top provider. It’s also available in many global markets like SEA, GCC and others.
- 1y ago

sub7 1y ago

I spend many months in India every year and I've been paying with RuPay and UPI for the past 5 years exclusively. It works, and India saved 1-2% of all digital payments going to some leechy foreign middlemen who do nothing. V/M would love to "but fraud" us sadly the actual payment fraud % is much lower than claimed and easily dealt with by the issuing/receiving banks.

MinimalAction 1y ago

India did great by introducing UPI and subsequently RuPay to face these duopoly behemoths. UPI replaced queues to ATMs in general since one could typically scan a QR code and have the amount transferred in seconds. This is far more modern than ACH equivalents US has. But the downside is that it is a debit transaction; if you're scammed, there is usually no way to retrieve it unless a court orders so.

LeoWattenberg 1y ago
It feels broadly desirable to have a court decide what is and isn't a scam and perhaps hand out punishment instead of having a private entity act as the judge and executioner.
- MinimalAction 1y ago
  Absolutely. Except that it is much harder to raise a dispute with UPI than, say, with a Chase card that used Visa network. But, I much prefer the national offerings to a private company charging as much as 0.5% of transaction value for doing almost nothing.
vee-kay 1y ago
I work in Banking, and RBI (India's Banking Regulatory organization) has enforced stringent norms for UPI transactions behind the scenes, especially for chargebacks/disputes, to ensure that the UPI transactions are processed faster and easier by the Banks and intermediary processors, with the aim that customers get transparency and accountability in digital payments. So stringent in fact, that RBI shut down PayTM Payments Bank which was most popular market leader in that sector, because PayTM flouted the mandated norms for digital payments and payments banking. That is also beside the fact that UPI platform has high uptime and rarely faces any outages.
rldjbpin 1y ago
> But the downside is that it is a debit transaction; if you're scammed, there is usually no way to retrieve it unless a court orders so. in a practical sense, UPI is primarily positioned to facilitate digital transactions in a cash-first economy. while it would be nice to have safeguards against scams, especially as qr codes become more ubiquitous by the day. however, paying with cash did not have any inherent safety features either, so it is equivalent in terms of risk imho. although i do have a personal anecdote of getting a payment reversed when a pos double charged me. i did have receipts and had to wait a few weeks, but in theory it is possible in regular scenarios (i.e. when it is between an individual and a business).

h4kunamata 1y ago

I have gone full on cash-only mode, people would freak out with the amount of fees they pay without knowing it. I only have debit card, no credit card at all, in many places AUD$0.30-$0.50c is added to the goods price on debit cards. With cash, many places are offering 5-15% off when buying with cash only which is awesome. If you are a gamer, you most have heard within the last 3-4 days now that Steam, Itch.io and others removed +18 games from their store because of a psycho Australian activists group called Collective Shout, who used words like rpe, child prngrphy forcing Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and a Japanese payment system to force those games stores to remove the games or they wouldn't have a processing payment. Thanks to Visa/MasterCard monopoly, everybody was forced to do it. Many players don't even have +18 games filter enabled, for us in general this isn't about the +18 games but about US payment systems telling us what we can buy or not. Visa is getting its ass busted in Japan already with a Japanese politician joining the fight with gamers. Dedollarisation has never been this strong, countries are already doing international trades using their own currency over the US dollar. I am not even getting into BRICS. It is not a surprise that the US isn't happy with PIX in Brazil, it is a huge country, imagine all the money Visa/MasterCard are no longer making. Based on market data, it suggest an ESTIMATE around USD2.5-USD4B in 2024-2025 revenue lost lmao The US is encountering the perfect storm!

tracker1 1y ago
The risk of deplatforming for many reasons should be deeply concerning all around. It's definitely concerning to say the least.

CalChris 1y ago

> According to the Federal Reserve, over 100 billion debit card payments were made in 2021, compared to 51 billion credit card payments. In terms of transaction value, debit cards processed $4.6 trillion, while credit cards reached $4.9 trillion, indicating that credit transactions tend to be about double in average value. Interesting that debit cards are twice the swipes that credit cards are. Didn't know that. I wore the debit card hair shirt for decades. They have a ~0.73% transaction cost vs 1.5% to 3.5% for credit card swipes. But I never once got any benefit from this lower transaction cost. So now I have the Trifecta and a Savor. I work my credit cards aggressively and use their benefits to exceed their annual fees before even accounting for 3% cash back and Membership Reward Points and signup bonuses. I am winning on this. Consequently someone else must be losing. It seems to me that the debit card users are subsidizing me.

SV_BubbleTime 1y ago
Just a quick note, no one has ever become wealthy from their credit card rewards. I don’t know what your system is, but it sounds like you enjoy it, so you do you. And yes. Cash and debit cards have always subsidized credit.
- CalChris 1y ago
  The final straw was a trip to the UK. My debit card had foreign transaction fees and then I was waiting in the cattle call area for a BA flight seeing people significantly more relaxed coming out of airport lounges. My system, so to speak, is really nothing. Sign up bonuses, (American Express wanted me bad), read the fine print and work the benefits, use the right card for the given transaction. Does this make sense? No, it does not. Yet here we are. I've always detested this stuff yet merchants are forcing me to take this benefit. So I take it. FWIW, 99% of my transactions are with my phone. So there is no flex involved. My iPhone makes the transaction virtually the same as with a debit card.
- Alupis 1y ago
  It's often about getting benefits out of transactions you're going to make regardless of how you pay for it. If you're going to buy groceries, does it matter if you pay cash (debit) or use a credit card? The credit card gives you some percentage of that purchase back in rewards, which you then redeem on other things such as airfare, hotels, dinner out, uber, etc. Think of it like a coupon that's valid everywhere, and every time you use it, a tiny sum is deposited into a savings account. Pay it off at the end of the month and it's pretty much free money. Credit cards also have better cardholder protections, security and safety than using debit cards or cash. Some people use credit cards for every purchase and become highly skilled at maximizing card rewards. This is also why many will say card fees don't matter - you often accrue enough rewards to pay for the fee itself plus lots more, making the fee irrelevant. The fee is there to compel you to use the card often enough to exceed the fee's value.

BomberFish 1y ago

Here in Canada, Interac has somewhat displaced that (even though most people still use Visa/Mastercard for transactions with businesses). That being said, it's especially useful for transfers between individuals as the transaction fees are relatively low, which makes services like PayPal or Cash App much less appealing domestically.

srivmo 1y ago

The article underplays the role stablecoins are going to play in the next 10 years. Compared to 6+ intermediaries in a standard SWIFT payment, a cross-border payment facilitated by USDC/USDT just needs 2 players - an on-ramp provider and an off-ramp provider. The result ⇒ insanely low costs, much lesser than 1-5% typically charged by a SWIFT payment. This network is sustainable and running on established blockchains which have been running for over a decade now - ETH. This network somehow needs to penetrate domestically too - something like a UPI. That moment is going to be a watershed moment that should break this duopoly. PS: Its a separate matter altogether that Visa/Mastercard are trying to gel well into this new age infrastructure

dotwaffle 1y ago
> Compared to 6+ intermediaries in a standard SWIFT payment Huh? I think the message format in ISO20022 can only 3 intermediaries before having to resort to more complex mechanisms. Most SWIFT payments have 0 or 1 intermediaries.
- elric 1y ago
  Not sure what OP is referring to either. I guess you could consider SWIFT to be an intermediary instead of a delivery mechanism? But even that doesn't add up to 6+.

bahularora 1y ago

What I find interesting is how India’s financial inclusion push under the Jan Dhan Yojana (National Financial Inclusion Mission) led to unexpected consequences. The government aimed to offer zero-cost bank accounts to extremely low-income citizens and needed zero cost debit cards to make them functional. Rumor has it they asked Visa and Mastercard to waive fees and both declined. Even Indian banks reportedly pushed back. So India doubled down on RuPay, its domestic card network. What started as a fallback turned into a fintech revolution. Over 559 million bank accounts were opened under this mission, most powered by RuPay. Ironically, if Visa or Mastercard had agreed, RuPay might never have taken off.

RataNova 1y ago

And how much of Visa and Mastercard's dominance boils down to a combination of early network effects and entrenched relationships with banks, rather than pure technological innovation

gsky 1y ago

Any country that depends on American financial system will pay a price. Which is why big nations are trying to protect themselves.

RataNova 1y ago
It's less about ideology and more about sovereignty

mac-monet 1y ago

Since this is adjacent to crypto, I came in here expecting some kind of hateful things being said about it, but seems like a fairly productive and honest discussion, something that is usually lost as soon as the c-word is mentioned. Despite all of the issues that are within the crypto world, I do think stablecoins are a fantastic use-case that most of us should be able to get behind to break this duopoly. With some oversight/proofs of solvency for the issuers, I hope they can become the dominant payment method. I can say from experience, the fact that I can easily pay friends and also receive yield on my holdings is such a nice experience, especially considering the inflationary environment we're in currently.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

I really wish of some decent way of getting money as a teenager without doing some insane kyc or having people buy crypto just to buy my stuff I guess. I know that anonymous money could be used for funding of bad stuff like terrorism and tax evasion but its just a mess that I can't get money but there are loopholes too :/ KYC should be made easier for teens and also I must admit, from what I see, remittances/cross country payments are just so much of an hassle but crypto sucks as a currency too in many aspects mainly on how to convert crypto <-> cash non kyc way

n4r9 1y ago

> How is it possible that, in the era of global competition, such a large market niche is completely dominated by only two players? This is far from atypical! If you're interested in the prevalence and impact of market consolidation, Matt Stoller talks about it a lot in his BIG newsletter: https://www.thebignewsletter.com/ https://www.thebignewsletter.com/

RamblingCTO 1y ago

Where are all the "yes monopolies are good, thiel said so" people now?