4 ms·

The best players to disrupt Visa Mastercard duopoly would rather be a consortium of payment processors such as Shopify / Stripe / Google Pay / Apple Pay and ban

The best players to disrupt Visa Mastercard duopoly would rather be a consortium of payment processors such as Shopify / Stripe / Google Pay / Apple Pay and banks taking in sandwhich Visa and Mastercard (where the money is stored, where the money is spent)

closewith 1y ago
Pix, UPI, etc have definitively shown that Governments are the best players to disrupt the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.
- ttoinou 1y ago
  There might be survivorship bias here. One could also argue that Governments are the best players to get and maintain a monopoly or duopoly (:
  - closewith 1y ago
    Well, that's definitely true, and it's also how the MasterCard and Visa monopoly remains dominant. Just look at the extreme backlash of Trump's administration against the Brazilian Central Bank's plans to sell the Pix protocol abroad.
    - _1tem 1y ago
      There’s a geopolitical reason for this. Ability to print a world reserve currency and apply sanctions to control capital flow are among the primary tools of American power.
      - closewith 1y ago
        Yes, I'm aware. The dominance of the dollar and the US financial services corporations is no accident. This further reinforces that it's a government that's maintaining the Visa/Mastercard duopoly and it will be governments that break it.
- gabll 1y ago
  I agree, and I hope initiatives like the Digital Euro [0] will have success soon. [0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
  - ta12653421 1y ago
    I do not think that it will fix these issues, but I gurantee you that in this present box some additional things will be brought to you ;-)
Xss3 1y ago
I'm hoping steam builds their own.
- lan321 1y ago
  They could probably make decent money with card graphics. I'd probably pay a couple bucks for a Gaben or an R6Siege card. Much more interesting than metal cards.
  - crote 1y ago
    My previous bank already offered this: for 5 bucks extra you could get your own image printer on your debit card. They are one of the most popular banks around here, yet I rarely see anyone with one.
    - lan321 1y ago
      I've seen it as well, but for me, it'd be better to have premade images, and Valve can make images that interest me and aren't too cringe. It's not a massive business, but it's probably good side money since many banks offer it. It probably costs 5 cents to print on it, and you can easily get me to give you 2$ for it. Up to 5$ if I really like it or you catch me in a moment of weakness at 2 AM. And they can probably try to make it a big business. They managed to get people to spend stupid money on skins, levelling Steam accounts, etc, so there are probably whales who'd collect cards. For example, if you get a special card skin unlock once you 100% a game, or you just add rarity to them. The chances aren't huge IMO, but I'd have never guessed people would pay the money they pay for skins and levels anyway, so..
rprend 1y ago
Stripe has pay-by-bank they are pushing with Stripe Link, by making it users’ default payment method. They get terrible conversion, though if they could it would make them massively profitable. Shopify has ShopPay which means they take home a good portion of the fee on every transaction. Apple Pay takes a higher cut on payments than Visa does (.15% vs .14%). They don’t bother with pay by bank, though, probably because of the underwriting. All of these companies ARE competing on payments
WorldPeas 1y ago
Would not the best stakeholder to have on your side be companies like clover or toast, aside from ecommerce? I think the most concrete foothold one could have is brick-and-mortar POS acceptance, and now that places don't have to run their own registers this is probably easier than ever to push out to the masses.

closewith 1y ago

Pix, UPI, etc have definitively shown that Governments are the best players to disrupt the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.

ttoinou 1y ago
There might be survivorship bias here. One could also argue that Governments are the best players to get and maintain a monopoly or duopoly (:
- closewith 1y ago
  Well, that's definitely true, and it's also how the MasterCard and Visa monopoly remains dominant. Just look at the extreme backlash of Trump's administration against the Brazilian Central Bank's plans to sell the Pix protocol abroad.
  - _1tem 1y ago
    There’s a geopolitical reason for this. Ability to print a world reserve currency and apply sanctions to control capital flow are among the primary tools of American power.
    - closewith 1y ago
      Yes, I'm aware. The dominance of the dollar and the US financial services corporations is no accident. This further reinforces that it's a government that's maintaining the Visa/Mastercard duopoly and it will be governments that break it.
gabll 1y ago
I agree, and I hope initiatives like the Digital Euro [0] will have success soon. [0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...
- ta12653421 1y ago
  I do not think that it will fix these issues, but I gurantee you that in this present box some additional things will be brought to you ;-)

Xss3 1y ago

I'm hoping steam builds their own.

lan321 1y ago
They could probably make decent money with card graphics. I'd probably pay a couple bucks for a Gaben or an R6Siege card. Much more interesting than metal cards.
- crote 1y ago
  My previous bank already offered this: for 5 bucks extra you could get your own image printer on your debit card. They are one of the most popular banks around here, yet I rarely see anyone with one.
  - lan321 1y ago
    I've seen it as well, but for me, it'd be better to have premade images, and Valve can make images that interest me and aren't too cringe. It's not a massive business, but it's probably good side money since many banks offer it. It probably costs 5 cents to print on it, and you can easily get me to give you 2$ for it. Up to 5$ if I really like it or you catch me in a moment of weakness at 2 AM. And they can probably try to make it a big business. They managed to get people to spend stupid money on skins, levelling Steam accounts, etc, so there are probably whales who'd collect cards. For example, if you get a special card skin unlock once you 100% a game, or you just add rarity to them. The chances aren't huge IMO, but I'd have never guessed people would pay the money they pay for skins and levels anyway, so..

rprend 1y ago

Stripe has pay-by-bank they are pushing with Stripe Link, by making it users’ default payment method. They get terrible conversion, though if they could it would make them massively profitable. Shopify has ShopPay which means they take home a good portion of the fee on every transaction. Apple Pay takes a higher cut on payments than Visa does (.15% vs .14%). They don’t bother with pay by bank, though, probably because of the underwriting. All of these companies ARE competing on payments

WorldPeas 1y ago

Would not the best stakeholder to have on your side be companies like clover or toast, aside from ecommerce? I think the most concrete foothold one could have is brick-and-mortar POS acceptance, and now that places don't have to run their own registers this is probably easier than ever to push out to the masses.