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A comment on Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure. Parent comment

Re:Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure by cameronh90 on Saturday November 13, 2021 @08:04AM (#29209459)
UK banks are pretty heavily regulated. For example, the overdraft fee spiral has been banned and in many cases banks were required to pay compensation.

Yet we have quite a lot of banks to pick from - around 60 if you include building societies (more if you include private, niche and specialist banks). We also have a fair few new and digital challenger banks like Monzo, Starling, Atom, Revolut and arguably Metro Bank. If anything our banking system seems far more innovative than the US system.

I don't know about Canada, but clearly regulations don't mean that you can't have competition and innovation.

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Re:Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure by philjohn on Saturday November 13, 2021 @12:32PM (#29211522)
There are a lot of things that are just plain better in the UK compared to the US. Out of network ATM fees being a big one.

See also regulation about what the incumbent last-mile network provider (Openreach) can charge ISP's to provide services on their lines which has led to a larger number of ISP's available in any one place (unless you're in Hull, because of historical reasons).

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Re:Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure by leetcrew on Saturday November 13, 2021 @12:57PM (#29211731)
if ATM fees are important to you, you could always consider opening an account with schwab. they reimburse 100% of ATM fees.

as for ISPs, it's hard to do worse than comcast, but at least they don't block a wide range of content by default.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...

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Re:Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure by philjohn on Sunday November 14, 2021 @05:12AM (#29216367)
It was either "voluntarily block, or we'll force you to".

And the piracy site blocks are due to high court orders - not a lot an ISP can do in those cases.

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Re:Debit cards are hidden financial infrastructure by JoBrad on Saturday November 13, 2021 @10:25AM (#29210378)
I could be mistaken about this, but I thought it had something to do with the UK’s relationship with the EU (and perhaps the US, as well?) that made the UK particularly attractive to financial industry.
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