Re:Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?
by ephimetheus on Thursday August 18, 2022 @01:58AM
(#32505830)
That’s due to societal reasons though not really technical ones. In many cases it’s the businesses not being willing to pay the extra fees at all, regardless of how low they are.
This seems to indeed have started to rapidly change with covid.
Re:Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?
by martinald on Thursday August 18, 2022 @04:46PM
(#32514667)
Cash has a load of fees of its own though - loss, theft, peoople giving wrong change out, transport costs (and the risk it entails), bank fees to accept etc. I believe the cost of handling cash is estimated at 1-2%. I know my business bank accounts all charge 0.5%-1% to pay cash in.
The only way it makes sense is if you are evading tax, as you'll happily pay 1-2% in cash losses to save 20, 30, 40%+ in taxes.
Re:Can the Visa-Mastercard duopoly be broken?
by ephimetheus on Friday August 19, 2022 @02:26AM
(#32518040)
I've never got it either. I do have to say though that the German society is super focussed on cash as a thing so I wouldn't be surprised if the associated cost of it were lower there.
It doesn't make sense to me however that the economics are ostensibly so different between e.g. Germany and France, where in the latter basically even small shops don't care. Either it's something to do with taxes like you said, or German shop's margins are razor thin.
Youre right about the rest but in the US card acceptance is very very high (same in the UK, Nordics, etc). Germany definitely is not a shining light of electronic payments imo.