[HN Gopher] Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
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Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards
Author : barrkel
Score : 271 points
Date : 2021-11-17 09:09 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| barrkel wrote:
| I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be higher
| than Amex - there's something going on behind the scenes here.
|
| I don't think this is the end of it either, it smells like a
| negotiation threat. Visa have a larger market share overall (80%,
| including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards.
| Amex has always been fairly niche because it's not accepted
| everywhere.
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1116580/payment-card-
| sch...
|
| > Visa was the largest card issuer in Ireland and the United
| Kingdom, with market shares of over 80 percent in both countries.
| (from 2019)
|
| Reading further it does look like most Visa cards are debit cards
| and Mastercard has the lead in credit cards.
|
| PS: Comment updated after some research.
| ralferoo wrote:
| There might be something going on with Visa in the UK. I've
| noticed that all the bank accounts I've had that used Visa for
| debit cards for many years all seem to have switched to
| Mastercard recently. Presumably they wouldn't overcome this
| much inertia unless there was a substantial financial
| incentive. If card issuers are finding that their costs are too
| high, chances are payment processors are as well.
| soco wrote:
| On the other hand, a UK company called Wise (formerly
| TransferWise) has switched its issued debit cards from
| Mastercard to to Visa recently.
| tupac_speedrap wrote:
| Same here, thought I thought was being scammed but everyone
| else in my family got letters saying that their cards are
| moving to Mastercard debit in the coming months. I doubt Visa
| will have much marketshare even in the debit card market by
| the end of next year.
| IanCal wrote:
| I think visa are increasing their fees from 0.3% (EU regs) to
| 1.5% here.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| But that EU limit is for debit cards right? And Amazon is
| excluding the credit cards while still accepting visa
| debit.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| It's for both. 0.2% for debit, 0.3% for credit iirc.
| deadbunny wrote:
| Unfortunately the UK is no longer in the EU.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Huh, so the UK hasn't kept that law when leaving the EU?
| That's an odd decision!
| joshuaissac wrote:
| They have, but it only applies in the same jurisdiction.
| So it still applies to intra-UK transactions and to
| intra-EU transactions. But not to transactions between
| the two.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Ah, that makes sense. Annoying, but makes sense.
| vmilner wrote:
| FWIW It's also 1.5% between Switzerland and the EU.
| makomk wrote:
| I think both Visa and Mastercard are increasing their fees
| like that, but only for payments between the UK and EU (and
| pretty much simultaneously too - aren't duopolies great?)
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| That seems extremely odd though. You'd expect a card company
| to pamper one side so they can shaft the other.
|
| If they try to shaft both sides, then they'll simply lose
| market share.
| tyingq wrote:
| >I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be
| higher than Amex
|
| Merchants put up with high Amex transaction fees because Amex
| cardholders tend to be affluent and frequent purchasers.
| zh3 wrote:
| FWIW, as a UK Amazon buyer with a Visa Credit card, I received
| an email this morning with Subject line "Visa credit cards will
| not be accepted, starting 19 Jan, 2022" and nothing but my name
| in the body. A very, very basic email - interesting 'From'
| address though. Received: from a0-156.smtp-
| out.eu-west-1.amazonses.com (a0-156.smtp-out.eu-
| west-1.amazonses.com [54.240.0.156]) <redacted> From:
| "Amazon.co.uk" <amazon-offers@amazon.co.uk> Subject: Visa
| credit cards will not be accepted, starting 19 Jan, 2022
| Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2021 09:15:34 +0000 Content-Type:
| text/plain; charset=utf-8 Amazon.co.uk
| <name redacted> Please note that this e-mail is
| being sent from an e-mail address that cannot receive e-mails.
| If you have any questions and wish to contact us, click here:
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?<redacte
| d> 2021 Amazon.co.uk is a trading name for Amazon EU
| Sarl, for Amazon Media EU and for Amazon Services Europe Sarl,
| all of which have their registered office at 38 avenue John F.
| Kennedy, L-1855 Luxembourg.
| kingcharles wrote:
| "an e-mail address that cannot receive e-mails"
|
| This should not be a thing.
| whylo wrote:
| I've just checked my copy of the email and you're right, the
| text/plain part only has my name in. The text/html part has
| the full message though.
| zh3 wrote:
| That's interesting, mine definitely only has plain text (no
| text/html, checked via view source etc). Maybe it's a
| preference I ticked somewhere back in the mists of time.
| AnssiH wrote:
| I also used to tick that preference when a choice was
| provided, but have stopped doing so after encountering
| too many cases of text/plain versions being broken one
| way or another. Not _that_ common, but still too much of
| a hassle.
|
| Sometimes they are "empty" like here, or contain
| placeholders in place of the actual data, or just break
| random features (e.g. eBay prevented other users from
| sending me photos).
| r_c_a_d wrote:
| Yes, I got one too and thought it was spam.
| GoodbyeMrChips wrote:
| Join the club.
|
| The email formatting was so shite, I'm pretty sure any
| savvy reader assumed it was pishing (even though the URL
| appears legit).
| ireadfaces wrote:
| Amex has fairly been consistent 'because it is not accepted
| anywhere'
| uzakov wrote:
| I think situation in 2021 is very different in London: AMEX is
| accepted nearly everywhere in central London (Even on markets
| etc), there are ofc some shops that don't take it but generally
| AMEX is widely accepted.
|
| Re: Mastercard
|
| It seems that Mastercard is more widespread among "hot" banking
| startups, ie I can create virtual debit Mastercards on Revolut
| and Monzo
| hocuspocus wrote:
| > It seems that Mastercard is more widespread among "hot"
| banking startups, ie I can create virtual debit Mastercards
| on Revolut and Monzo
|
| They were definitely first in this space but Revolut has
| issued Visa's (in some cases) for a while now, and for
| instance Wise has recently switched from MasterCard to Visa
| entirely.
| blowski wrote:
| I'd like to see some stats on that. My own experience is much
| closer to that of the OP.
| Macha wrote:
| Yeah, my success rate for the corporate Amex in Europe is
| 70-80% which means the remaining time I need to fill out
| more tedious paperwork to get reimbursed to my personal
| card. The US based finance team continue to insist its much
| better now, but a 20-30% failure rate is too high
| em10fan wrote:
| Other than some occasional small restaurants/pubs, and a
| few small indie shops, its basically accepted everywhere
| here in Edinburgh, I have a corporate amex and use it for
| expensing business dinners very often, and supplies from
| office shops, supermarkets, etc..
| blowski wrote:
| I used to have a corporate Amex, and it was a nightmare
| to use it in London. Even in places that said they
| accepted it, when I attempted to pay the card reader
| rejected it. That was about 5 years ago, maybe times have
| changed - it would be great to see data rather than a
| mixture of anecdotes.
| david_allison wrote:
| Was your card Chip & PIN? Didn't have a problem with my
| British-issued Amex in London 5 years ago.
| pishpash wrote:
| Amex has gone the lower-fee route on some cards in recent
| years. Visa, with Visa Signature, may be going the other
| way.
| uzakov wrote:
| AMEX now has fee-free cards, which afaik still offer
| cashback and offers
| mutatio wrote:
| For my personal data point, 1 of 7 cards is Visa, the rest are
| Mastercard.
| wdb wrote:
| Really never had a Visa credit card only master card in the UK.
| Visa debit cards, yes.
| em10fan wrote:
| Totally agree.
|
| All the major banks apart from Barclays and HSBC use
| Mastercard for credit
| rjsw wrote:
| My HSBC credit card has always been Mastercard.
| fanf2 wrote:
| I was looking at HSBC's credit card services earlier;
| they have a mixture of VISA and Mastercard, though they
| tend to use Mastercard for the more high-end services.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| Nationwide uses Visa for their credit cards.
| wdb wrote:
| Ah the banks that didn't let me open a bank account when
| I moved to the UK :)
| flumpcakes wrote:
| Technically they are not a bank. They are a building
| society, but they are effectively a "bank" and have a few
| million customers.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be
| higher than Amex - there's something going on behind the scenes
| here.
|
| I would be willing to bet the fees Amazon gets are vastly
| different from the fees a small merchant has to endure.
|
| They obviously tried to squeeze a little bit more and now
| they'll leave it to the shareholders to pressure the company to
| accept whatever Bezos wants.
| [deleted]
| pornel wrote:
| First direct (HSBC) has recently switched from Visa to
| Mastercard. The switch felt sudden, and I wouldn't be surprised
| if it was due to negotiation that fell through.
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| Natwest are also swapping to MasterCard debit once cards
| expire. I just presumed the issuing bank had negotiated a
| more favourable interchange rates than using Visa.
|
| (MC taking less of a cut of the final fees then Visa, so the
| banks getting a higher precentage of the fees then they would
| have sticking with Visa. Lets say MC gave away 5% of their
| cut to the banks, keeping 95% of the your slice of the pie
| when you are processing more pies is more than 100% of your
| slice of fewer pies if you get what I mean).
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| But so far only on it debit cards, it still offers visa
| credit cards.
| dazc wrote:
| I have John Lewis credit card , which is essentially
| branded HSBC, and it is Mastercard.
| em10fan wrote:
| Quite the opposite in the UK, at least over the last 10 years
| or so.
|
| 99% of debit cards are Visa, and most people buying stuff on
| Amazon would be using a debit card, folks only really use
| credit cards for large purchases and things like travel, here.
|
| Even when it comes to credit cards, I would say Mastercard has
| like a large chunk - like 80% in terms of institutions (but who
| knows in terms of actual customers), I would say.
|
| Barclays and HSBC are the only majors that do Visa as far as I
| know. And Vanquis which is a junky one for people with bad
| credit.
|
| The other majors like Lloyds, TSB, Bank Of Scotland, Halifax,
| Natwest, RBS, are all Mastercard. Same with most smaller banks
| like Virgin and CapitalOne, and store branded ones like
| Sainsburys/M&S/Tesco, too, as well as the remainder of the
| popular bad-credit cards like Ocean, and Aqua. Mastercard.
| jl6 wrote:
| Here's some data:
|
| https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/data-and-
| research/data/cards/ca...
|
| PS16.9bn on credit, PS61bn on debit.
|
| I suspect credit card spending is much more popular than you
| are suggesting due to consumer credit act protections and
| cashback offers.
| Symbiote wrote:
| A huge number of replies arguing from personal experience,
| while the single comment providing data from a primary
| source is ignored.
|
| Come on, Hacker News. You are supposed to be better than
| this -- repeated discussions with the same "but in Europe"
| "I've do X so Y doesn't happen" comments is why I stopped
| reading Slashdot.
|
| I've downvoted several anecdotes in this discussion. They
| contribute _nothing_ to the discussion.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > folks only really use credit cards for large purchases and
| things like travel, here
|
| This is delusional - the British have as many credit cards as
| people, PS56.5 billion on credit cards, and 40% of credit
| card transactions were contactless, so certainly not large
| purchases.
| BitterAmethyst wrote:
| Nationwide's credit cards use Visa.
| mrec wrote:
| > most people buying stuff on Amazon would be using a debit
| card, folks only really use credit cards for large purchases
|
| Huh? I'm in the UK, have been an Amazon customer for over 20
| years and have always used a credit card for everything. I
| didn't even know you _could_ use a debit card, and can 't see
| any reason you'd want to. Paid off in full every month,
| better consumer protection, what's not to like?
| gambiting wrote:
| You must be an actual anomaly, like yeah, what you are
| saying makes sense, but you are the only person I've ever
| heard about who does that here in UK. Everyone I know, me
| included, just uses debit cards for purchases everywhere
| including Amazon. I have a credit card but I very very very
| rarely use it for anything.
| chris_overseas wrote:
| I'm in the UK and always prefer to use a credit card
| whenever possible. It automatically gets paid off every
| month so I never get charged any interest, I get points
| worth minimum 0.5% back for all purchases, and benefit
| from the fairly strong UK consumer protection laws here.
|
| The only exception where I'd prefer a debit card is in
| very rare cases when there's an additional fee for using
| a credit card. That's usually for large sums and/or
| international payments though, in which case I tend to
| use a specialised FX company or Revolut. My normal debit
| card is literally the last card I ever use, when all else
| fails or is more expensive.
| throwaway287391 wrote:
| > I have a credit card but I very very very rarely use it
| for anything.
|
| But why? The credit card is strictly better isn't it? I
| thought the main reason people used debit cards was that
| they got one automatically with their checking account
| and just never bothered to apply for a CC, but that's not
| the issue for you.
| gambiting wrote:
| I don't know, when I use my debit card it just goes out
| of my main account, done, don't have to worry about it.
| On my credit card I'll have bigger purchases I made some
| time ago and I'm working towards paying them off - if I
| put all my monthly purchases there too, I'd lose track of
| how much of that I need to pay off monthly and how much
| I've got left on my main account.
|
| And yes, it can be easily worked out but I guess I just
| can't be arsed. And for purchases under PS100, credit
| cards offer no additional protection whatsoever, so for
| my daily shopping I'd just be making my life more
| difficult for no reason.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Nowadays with open banking, apps are starting to be able
| to aggregate all your accounts and credit cards into a
| single pane of glass. It isn't perfect yet, but it's
| getting there.
| lmm wrote:
| > And for purchases under PS100, credit cards offer no
| additional protection whatsoever, so for my daily
| shopping I'd just be making my life more difficult for no
| reason.
|
| They offer better protection against fraudulent charges
| though? If your card gets skimmed it doesn't matter
| whether you were paying PS5 or PS5000.
| gambiting wrote:
| I never understood this point - my debit card has been
| charged fraudulently couple of times, all it always took
| was a quick call to Barclays, 2 minutes on the phone with
| the agent and the charges were reversed and the card
| cancelled.
|
| What exactly can a credit card do better than this?
| lmm wrote:
| You called and the money was available for you to spend
| within 2 minutes? When it happened to me I had to go in
| and fill out a form and wait about a month (not easy on a
| student budget).
| gambiting wrote:
| Yep. I rang and said there's a payment I don't recognize
| and that I didn't make, for Uber in Vietnam. The agent
| was like "yep, looks fraudulent, we'll cancel it right
| now and are sending a new card straight away". Money was
| back by the time I disconnected from the call. Second
| time it was someone buying stuff on PSN with my card,
| exact same situation - had the money back instantly.
| vel0city wrote:
| A friend of mine had her debit card skimmed years ago.
| The skimmer used it in the area around town, going to
| restaurants and buying gas in the area. When she noticed
| the fraudulent charges (transaction declined) she
| contacted her bank. It took a week for most of her
| charges to be investigated and reversed, in the mean time
| she had absolutely no cash.
| yulaow wrote:
| I don't know in Uk or USA, but in the rest of europe
| there is no difference at all in protection against
| fraudulent charges between a credit and a debit card.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| There's no difference with fraudulent charges in the UK,
| as far as I'm aware, but when you buy a product or
| service on credit, we have a law saying the credit
| provider and retailer are both liable.
|
| This means for example if you buy a flight and the
| airline goes out of business, your credit card provider
| will need to refund you. Also if goods are faulty, you
| now have two possibilities to get your money back - and
| the credit card companies are usually more amenable.
| reallydontask wrote:
| >Everyone I know, me included, just uses debit cards for
| purchases everywhere including Amazon.
|
| This is just as anecdotal as GP or indeed myself. I never
| use a debit card and don't know anybody that uses them
| other than for getting cash out of an ATM
| leoedin wrote:
| How old are you? People using credit cards in my circle
| (early 30s, London) are firmly the minority. If we split
| a bill in a restaurant it's all debit cards. Maybe
| there's one person with an amex or something.
| screwt wrote:
| Do you check everyone's card when you split the bill?
| What makes you think the others are debit rather than
| credit cards?
|
| For info: the debit & credit cards from my bank look
| almost identical. The only difference is one says
| "credit" in small black text. My credit card handles
| exactly like my debit card in terms of tap-and-pay etc. I
| just wouldn't use it to take out cash from an ATM, but
| then I can't remember when I last needed to do that.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| Another UK credit card user chiming in. I hardly ever use
| my debit card.
| toyg wrote:
| Uk here, I use credit cards for everything. Used wisely,
| consumer credit is incredibly useful. Example: bought a
| 4k motorbike, dealer finance or savings drawdown would
| have cost me hundreds; slapped it all on an 18-months 0%
| card and am now slowly repaying it on my own schedule, at
| no extra cost, while happily riding the thing.
| sbisson wrote:
| Exactly; with a credit card paid off monthly by direct
| debit and an interest paying current account, you're
| earning interest on your cash and not paying any on your
| purchases. What's not to like getting what's basically
| free money with a little bit of no-brainer arbitrage?
| toyg wrote:
| _> an interest paying current account_
|
| What is this unicorn you speak of...? :) jk, I know some
| exist, I've just been irrationally faithful to a bank
| that probably does not deserve it anymore (coop)...
|
| (But I keep my savings in an account that offsets against
| my mortgage, so I'm effectively getting a similar deal in
| practice by not accruing interest on that.)
| gambiting wrote:
| Yeah of course, I do the same thing - when I said I use
| mine "very rarely" I meant that I use it for things like
| buying laptops or other expensive things, to use the 0%
| interest period. I just don't know anyone who actually
| uses it for day to day purchases from amazon and such, I
| just use my debit card for that.
| 88 wrote:
| Using a credit card in this way could be negatively
| impacting your credit rating.
|
| You can be dinged both for having credit and not using it
| in a given month, as well as exceeding a certain
| threshold (~10%?) of your credit limit.
| gambiting wrote:
| I have two credit cards, one of them I haven't used in 5
| years at all, the other I use as described, and according
| to Credit Karma my credit rating is 690 our of 700. We
| just remortgaged the house too without any issue.
|
| So yeah, I don't think I care too much about my credit
| rating at all, it doesn't seem to be affected by this in
| the sligtest.
| 88 wrote:
| Fair enough if it doesn't impact your day to day, but it
| will definitely impact others.
|
| Also worth noting Credit Karma uses TransUnion which is
| only one of the big three rating agencies, and arguably
| the least important compared to Equifax and Experian.
| sparks1970 wrote:
| UK here, I use credit card for almost everything:
|
| 1. (As everyone says) consumer protection. I can dispute
| a charge to a CC and am not standing out the cash (unlike
| debit)
|
| 2. Debit transactions don't have any inherent limit. The
| bank might flag a very large transaction but once a debit
| transaction is underway it can't be stopped. I had >
| PS10k stolen from my online account via a debit
| transaction and though the bank made good, still, bad
| taste.
|
| 3. Most important if you are young - using (and paying
| off) credit card will improve your credit score which
| helps you when you do need the credit.
|
| 4. Delayed payment. Even when you clear your debt every
| month you're still getting the benefit of 30 days free
| credit on your purchases. In our current savings-rate
| environment this is somewhat moot but anyone who travels
| for work or has significant work expenses that they have
| to wait to get reimbursed for will find this a major
| feature. Lending your employer money really sucks.
|
| 5. Rewards cards. These have gone crappy over the last
| decade but if you are in a role where you have
| significant work expenses or where you put most of your
| expenditure through the CC it can be worthwhile to hunt
| around for and switch cards for deals. Spending PS1000 at
| Amazon/year on a debit card will get you exactly PS0 in
| rewards. Even 1% cashback would be worth having.
|
| The only downside to CC's I see is that some people can't
| trust themselves with credit - they'll spend up to their
| limit and get into a spiral of debt. If you don't do
| that, they're better than debit cards in my opinion.
| gambiting wrote:
| Just to address those points.
|
| 1) I've been able to dispute payments on my debit cards
| without any issue, they were always reversed instantly by
| the bank. Maybe I've been lucky, I don't know. And for
| the "bank is liable for your purchases" thing - that
| doesn't apply to anything under PS100 either.
|
| 2) That is a stupid limitation of UK banks, not debit
| cards in general. I have a bank account in Poland and for
| the debit cards with that bank I can set individual
| limits for internet transactions, terminal payments,
| CNP(card not present) transactions as well as ATM
| withdrawals - with separate daily/monthly/temporary
| limits. Why British banks don't implement this is
| unfathomable to me.
|
| 3) I suppose, I have no comment on this really.
|
| 4) yes, but then you need to remember to pay it off and
| how much exactly, which is a bit of a pain if you have
| your daily spending mixed in with bigger purchases that
| you want to pay off over a longer period of time.
|
| 5) Again, personal experience - other than 0% interest on
| purchases, never had a credit card in the UK with any
| rewards whatsoever.
|
| And yeah, it's not about downsides of CCs - it's just
| that when I pay for my daily shopping with my debit card
| it's out of my account, I know how much I have to work
| with at any given time, done. As I said elsewhere, I
| can't be arsed to work out it if my spending is spread
| across multiple accounts and different forms of credit.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| I was going to comment "mBank, isn't it?" but then
| realised that in such a competitive market as you have in
| Poland probably every bank's implemented this already.
| gambiting wrote:
| Hahaha, yes, it's mBank :-)
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > never had a credit card in the UK with any rewards
| whatsoever
|
| I used to fly to New York in first for free once a year
| on my reward points before COVID.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| I am like you. I'm pretty sure we are the minority. Most
| people I know don't trust themselves with credit.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Credit card fees?
| aembleton wrote:
| Get a fee free credit card and use direct debit to pay
| off in full each month.
| [deleted]
| jdiez17 wrote:
| > what's not to like?
|
| Well, the predatory business model, for one. The reason
| your credit card company can offer you "better consumer
| protection" and other benefits is because they count on a
| percentage of people not paying off their debt in time (and
| thus making more money out of them).
|
| Also, I personally wouldn't want "better consumer
| protection" to be mediated by a private company. That
| should just be the default.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Also, I personally wouldn't want "better consumer
| protection" to be mediated by a private company. That
| should just be the default.
|
| You're confused - in the UK the better consumer
| protection with a credit card is the _law_. On debit
| cards it's at their discretion.
| ericd wrote:
| It's not necessarily predatory, so much as they take a
| couple percent of everything that flows through them.
| Also, they don't take the hit on chargebacks, the
| merchant does. Those two things cover purchase protection
| just fine without relying on people getting hit with high
| interest rates.
| iampims wrote:
| And merchant add 2% to their base price which amounts to
| everyone not using a credit card "subsidizing" the
| benefits to all credit card users.
| refurb wrote:
| No, it's not like at some point merchants said "oh yeah,
| let's add 2% to account for credit card processing fees".
|
| The appeal of credit cards is higher volume - more
| purchases because people can put it on credit, it's more
| convenient, etc. That's why you'll see even roadside
| fruit stands offer credit card payments.
|
| Plus stores are in competition with each other (to
| varying degrees). Some will choose to absorb the entire
| 2% or a part of it since, in their mind, it's a net
| positive trade off.
|
| It's like saying a 5% increase in property taxes are just
| passed through as a rent increase. It all depends on the
| market. The right answer is something between 0-100% is
| passed through.
| [deleted]
| robjan wrote:
| The cost of handling cash is similar to handling a credit
| card transaction
| Symbiote wrote:
| And the cost of handling a debit card transaction is less
| than either of these.
|
| In bits of Europe where it's allowed (like here in
| Denmark), it's not unusual for shops to add a percentage
| to the total for payments by local credit card, business
| credit card and/or foreign credit card. I haven't yet
| seen a shop with a different price for cash vs debit
| cards.
| fredoralive wrote:
| In a UK context, the "better consumer protection" comes
| from the Consumer Credit Act 1974, not the banks
| goodwill.
|
| (Although the time my debit card did get stolen somehow,
| my bank did refund out of goodwill presmably becuase they
| didn't want to lose a customer).
| PeterisP wrote:
| " the time my debit card did get stolen somehow, my bank
| did refund out of goodwill" - IMHO not, depending on when
| that happened, the bank would not have a choice because
| of EU payment service directive which extends similar
| (but not exactly the same) protections to all payment
| instruments including debit cards.
| rkangel wrote:
| You actually get much better payment protection from a
| debit card than people are generally aware of. In the UK,
| the difference between a debit card and credit card is
| actually not very big due to legal protections (although
| you might have an easier time claiming off your credit
| card).
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| You sure? Section 75 is not equivalent to requesting a
| chargeback.
|
| https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-
| rights/regulation/section-7...
| stillicidious wrote:
| Visa debit also has transaction fees, often fixed to the
| same as credit for small vendors. Avoiding credit cards
| does not fix that.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| So you can't grasp that most other people might do things
| differently because you've done it one way for a long time?
| mrec wrote:
| I'd call that a radical interpretation of the text.
| ovi256 wrote:
| The fact that you, one individual uses CCs for everything
| does not contradict the facts that he gave.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| "I didn't even know you could use a debit card,"
|
| Is there ever a situation that you can use a credit card
| but not a debit card? There are occasionally places that
| only accept debit cards, but I think the only time I've had
| a debit card refused was when hiring a car.
| stevesimmons wrote:
| The reason for that is the car rental company does a
| "pre-auth" that ties up some of your credit limit
| (reduces your "open to buy" amount), in case you damage
| the car or don't return it with a full tank of petrol.
|
| Hotels will sometimes do the same for a room night plus
| potential minibar charges.
|
| The pre-auth gets released when you make the payment at
| the end of the car rental period.
| AnssiH wrote:
| "Pre-auth" works the same way for VISA/MC debit and
| VISA/MC credit.
|
| The amount is (temporarily) deducted from my available
| balance when I use a debit card, just like it is deducted
| from the credit limit when I use a credit card.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| At some point Uber only accepted credit cards, but not
| debit cards.
| maccard wrote:
| About 10 years ago a hotel I had prepaid wouldn't take a
| debit card for a damage deposit, but that's the only time
| in my life I've been asked for credit instead of debit.
| input_sh wrote:
| Here's why: two debit cards, one for receiving money, one
| for spending money. Automated payment from the 1st one to
| the 2nd one once a month with a fixed amount you expect to
| spend in a month.
|
| Nothing to pay off, you're spending your own money, can't
| be overcharged, can't go below zero, if someone leaks your
| spending card they can't touch the majority of your money,
| no scummy business practices.
|
| Never owned a credit card, don't have the slightest wish to
| do so.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Your plan might work with a pre-loaded credit card
| gambiting wrote:
| >>one for receiving money,
|
| What do you mean debit card for receiving money? In what
| sense?
|
| >> Automated payment from the 1st one to the 2nd one
|
| Again, I have absolutely no idea what you mean by that.
| Payment from a debit card to a debit card? What?
| simonh wrote:
| I take it they're separate accounts.
| ljm wrote:
| You can basically just sign up for an account with
| Revolut, Monzo, or Starling and use it purely for
| spending.
|
| Keep your primary account for getting paid, and for
| covering bills, then load up the second account with play
| money for the month.
|
| I know a few people who do this.
|
| I just use an AmEx account but it's a little frustrating
| that you can't set a spending limit on the card.
| ahoka wrote:
| Yeah, that makes no sense?
| toyg wrote:
| I guess he's trying to compartimentalize so that, if the
| spending account is compromised and depleted, the main-
| income one is untouched.
|
| Seems like a lot of work to do what CCs do automatically.
| I guess the upside is that crazy spending is impossible
| (well, if you make sure to forbid negative balances on
| the spending account) and it's impossible to accrue
| interest.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > well, if you make sure to forbid negative balances on
| the spending account
|
| I'm unaware of a UK bank that will let you do this, so...
| tazjin wrote:
| Monzo. It's the default in fact, since in order to get an
| overdraft you need to do a credit application.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| There's a difference between having an arranged
| overdraft, and being able to have a negative balance
| (also known as an unarranged overdraft).
|
| Monzo's own help pages explicitly state that your balance
| can go into the negative, because offline debit card
| payments will not be rejected. They'll also gladly take
| you into the negative if you owe them money (e.g. through
| a Monzo Plus or Premium sub, or use their Flex service).
|
| Search Monzo help for "Unarranged Overdrafts".
|
| As far as I'm aware, there is no UK bank that will
| guarantee they will reject all payments and never let you
| go into a negative balance on a debit card transaction.
| This is also a profit centre for them, so there's little
| motivation to actually do so.
| toyg wrote:
| The mandated fee-cap introduced a few years ago has (or
| rather should have) curbed the view that overdraft fees
| are a cost centre. Banks are extremely proactive now, as
| soon as there is a hint you'll go in the red they'll ping
| you in a bunch of ways and remind you of what you can and
| cannot do; so I wouldn't exclude that some (or all) might
| now refuse to complete purchases when it would push you
| too deep into unarranged territory, because they cannot
| charge you more than a fixed amount, so it would become
| basically a free loan.
| ldjb wrote:
| Here's the help page in question:
|
| https://monzo.com/help/overdrafts-loans/unauthorised-
| overdra...
| baq wrote:
| it is possible if a terminal accepts a transaction
| without connecting to the payment processor (small,
| contactless transactions can do that).
| [deleted]
| gambiting wrote:
| I'm with Barclays and Lloyds, and neither can go into
| negative(well, technically they can I suppose, but it's
| extremely hard to do. Any debit card or direct debit
| transaction will just get declined if it's about to go
| below 0).
| kalleboo wrote:
| Multiple bank accounts, each with it's own associated
| debit card
| Hamuko wrote:
| If you only have a bank account for receiving money, then
| you don't really need a debit card for that bank account.
| baq wrote:
| 90% of this is what a credit card already is... the only
| tricky thing is the limit which might not be as easily
| configured, but it certainly can be.
| tigershark wrote:
| How is this better than having a single credit card that
| gives you automatic protection and insurance on
| everything that you buy without having to think to stay
| under your self imposed limit otherwise you have to
| manually top up the card with the amount that you need to
| spend?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Do UK credit cards typically offer cash back?
|
| In the US, 2%+ on all purchases (either directly or
| through points) is pretty standard. Going up to 5%+.
|
| But I know this can be very different in other countries.
| I believe Japan has little to no incentives?
| kmlx wrote:
| amex does this in the uk
| refurb wrote:
| You could just automate payment of your credit card bill
| and get all those benefits plus more consumer protection.
| c16 wrote:
| The flip side to this is using something like an Amex
| which offers insurance, points, business lounge access
| and much more. Set up the card with diret debit (much
| like your automated payments) and never spend above what
| you can afford.
|
| You now have perks, points, insurance, consumer
| protection and still zero worries.
| stuaxo wrote:
| It's pretty expensive to have an Amex card, I had one for
| a bit, but ended up not really using it so the PS they
| wanted seemed like a rip-off in the end.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Mine's free, and they pay me cashback every year (which
| is of course mainly paid by companies like tesco and
| amazon as part of the fees)
| maccard wrote:
| There are many amex cards which don't have any fees, they
| even have a filter for them on their website [0]
|
| https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/credit-cards/all-
| cards/?i...
| nixass wrote:
| Amex is terrible card in EU. High fees, many places
| rejecting it, I see no real reason why to use Amex over
| Visa or Master/Maestro
| tigershark wrote:
| 1.25% cashback.
| maccard wrote:
| The link I shared is a list of cards from Amex that don't
| charge any fee. Anecdotally the number of places that
| reject my personal amex is very close to zero (there's
| one cafe enar me which doesn't take it).
|
| > I see no real reason why to use Amex over Visa or
| Master/Maestro
|
| Cashback/rewards, and it's accepted on Amazon in the UK
| after this year is a really good reason to use it over
| Visa at least. Maestro is non-existant in the UK. Maybe
| mastercard is a better choice, but I carry two cards
| _anyway_ , so one might as well be an Amex, and the
| second should be a mastercard?
| nixass wrote:
| Majority of hotels around Europe don't accept it, same
| with restaurants, small business, shops.. there is not a
| single reason to own one in Europe, even with cashback
| (cashback to what actually, since i cannot use it
| anywhere)
| maccard wrote:
| I've travelled around the UK, Ireland, France, Spain,
| Italy and almost exclusively used my Amex over the last 5
| or so years.
|
| > Majority of hotels around Europe don't accept it, same
| with restaurants, small business, shops
|
| I completely disagree. Almost every restaurant, hotel,
| cafe takes it. All major airlines accept them, the major
| train operators accept them, the major hotel booking
| sites and airbnb both accept it.
|
| > there is not a single reason to own one in Europe, even
| with cashback (cashback to what actually, since i cannot
| use it anywhere)
|
| Well there is, cashback, and contrary to what you're
| saying it _is_ usable in europe. You can book a flight
| with Ryanair, a train on trainline, hire a car via
| hertz/sixt/europcar, book a stay with
| airbnb/booking/hotels, and eat out in restaurants and
| local cafes all with an amex.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| You are paying for these "perks" and no I don't need
| insurance when I'm buying an electronic toothbrush from
| Amazon thank you very much.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > You are paying for these "perks"
|
| _Everyone_ is paying for the perks, since prices are the
| same for everyone, but only the people with a credit card
| are getting them.
|
| You're paying for their perks every time you buy with a
| debit card - it's madness to use debit.
| pandaman wrote:
| Unless you are getting a discount for paying with a debit
| card, you are paying for these perks too.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| not typically unless you carry a balance. The merchant
| pays regardless if you use a credit or debit card, only
| the rate changes.
| heurisko wrote:
| > Never owned a credit card, don't have the slightest
| wish to do so.
|
| I own a credit card, as you get additional consumer
| protections using a credit card rather than a debit card
| in the UK.
|
| Pay it off in full every month. No problem.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Specifically, the main protection is that if you buy
| something that turns out to be faulty or the company
| never delivers the goods, you can get the money back
| without going to court. You get the money back even if
| the company goes bankrupt.
|
| Some banks offer similar things on debit cards, but it's
| always at the banks discretion rather than required by
| law.
| murkle wrote:
| (*) over PS100
| ricardobayes wrote:
| It is an insurance policy then. Have you calculated how
| much this insurance cost you? Credit card fees, the
| inevitable 'forgot to pay it off' etc.
| tialaramex wrote:
| There is no "inevitable forgot to pay it off". Last
| century when I was old enough I got a credit card and the
| bank set it to automatically pay off every month. The
| bank says to itself, full balance of this account this
| month is say PS462.83 and must be paid on or before the
| 7th of December, then it sets a transfer to occur from my
| checking account for the amount PS462.83 on the 7th of
| December. No "forgetting" possible.
|
| Indeed if say an IT problem occurs and they can't do that
| transfer under UK law they eat the fees incurred. "The
| customer must be made whole".
|
| As to fees, the merchant doesn't have to accept cards, as
| we see with Amazon, if they don't like the fees. Why
| should ordinary consumers care? When we were part of the
| EU the cards couldn't charge excessive fees, now Brexit
| allowed them to unlock this potential source of profit.
| dwild wrote:
| The credit card fee is included in the price of the item,
| whether you use a credit card or a debit card, it's
| there.
| GoodbyeMrChips wrote:
| In the UK, credit cards are free (some specialist cards
| aside), including an automatic direct debit so you never
| forget to pay it off, so you never get charged interest.
|
| Never paid a penny in fees or interest in over 15
| years.... and an annual statement of fees (issued by law)
| informs me of this fact each year.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| Same in the US. Credit cards are so convenient and free
| and come with rewards. Of course most people don't
| realize until they are older that all that 'money back
| rewards' was essentially paid by themselves originally,
| by the vendor paying the credit card company a fee on
| every transaction. The issue is that credit card
| companies build in requirements to be endorsed that they
| don't charge different prices for cash only transactions
| often.
| fuzzer37 wrote:
| Yes. Anyone paying fees on a credit card should jump
| ship, that's a huge red flag. And I've made more in cash
| back rewards than I'll ever pay in interest.
| rlpb wrote:
| > can't be overcharged, can't go below zero
|
| In the UK, it's really hard to get a bank account where
| they'll do that. Instead they'll pay it, call it an
| "unauthorised overdraft" and then charge you for that.
| This is their business model - it's how they make
| sufficient income to operate.
|
| There are "basic bank accounts" which don't provide a
| credit facility, but these only exist because people with
| poor credit histories can't get bank accounts otherwise,
| and the regulator has threatened to enforce their
| availability otherwise. However since this means that
| there currently isn't any rule, the banks make it very
| difficult for an ordinary person (with good credit) to
| open a "basic bank account".
| imwillofficial wrote:
| "it's how they make sufficient income to operate." No.
| This is how the practice parasitism on the poor.
| rlpb wrote:
| To be clear, I don't agree with it, but it is how the
| current account market in the UK operates.
|
| More information here: https://researchbriefings.files.pa
| rliament.uk/documents/SN03...
|
| And a Supreme Court decision here: https://www.supremecou
| rt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2009-0070-judgme...
| Closi wrote:
| > In the UK, it's really hard to get a bank account where
| they'll do that.
|
| I'm pretty sure all of them do, just ring up your bank
| and ask them to set your overdraft limit to 0
|
| I've certainly done this with HSBC & Santander in the
| past, and when I got my Monzo account it was 0 by default
| (You had to sign up for an overdraft if you wanted one).
| ryanlol wrote:
| > you're spending your own money
|
| I can't even begin to imagine how you could see this as
| an _advantage_. It's really not.
| Bobylonian wrote:
| My mom has exactly the same system with her two debit
| cards and I have not taught her that - she is naturally
| smart. So proud of her and you too ;) Cheers!
| aysfrm11 wrote:
| In Europe just using debit cards is perfectly viable in
| 99% of the cases, however when it comes to car rentals
| you are still in some locations forced to provide a
| 'real' credit card.
|
| I write 'real' since most of the FinTechs like Revolut,
| N26 etc often issue debit cards that may fail in exactly
| that situation. It doesn't help if your account is flush
| with 10k USD and a car rental could easily block 2k for
| claims on your debit card, some will just not accept
| Revolut & co. Thus I am always forced to carry an
| emergency backup credit card from a major bank just to be
| on the safe side...
|
| Very much looking forward to the day some other means of
| international payment (crypto?) will be generally
| accepted.
| londons_explore wrote:
| They require a credit card because credit card companies
| have robust ID and credit checking. If their ID checks
| weren't great, someone could steal the whole credit
| limit.
|
| Banks and debit providers also do ID checks, as required
| by law, but don't check anywhere near as hard, since
| there is no way to steal money from the bank if your
| account can't go negative.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| I am so fortunate to live a in a truly free country that
| has not yet caved in to most of the western crap despite
| being a western first world country. Spain. Here the
| rental companies accept even cash, and the person who
| pays doesn't even need to be the same as the one who
| rents.
| pittmajp wrote:
| What about all the free money you're leaving off the
| table in miles and cash back? I've had a credit card for
| about 3 years, and while it isn't much, I've never paid a
| dime in interest and I'm up roughly $800.
| ahoka wrote:
| Big corporations giving people free money sound kinda
| unbelievable, don't you think? They must actually make
| money on card holders for this to be profitable. The
| obvious way is that some people will overdraw sooner or
| later, the other is that people with credit cards simply
| tend to spend more (some say about 10-15%). The average
| credit card debt in the USA is more that 6000$.
| vel0city wrote:
| The "average credit card debt" is a bit difficult to
| really measure. That isn't necessarily the amount of
| _interest bearing_ credit card debt which IMO is the real
| concern.
|
| I've have some credit card debt, none of it carries any
| interest. When I buy appliances or furniture I usually
| take the interest free financing despite having the
| ability to pay. Why pay a few grand today when you can
| spread that out interest free for 2 years and let that
| value appreciate? I would have lost out on tons of money
| if I had sold investments up front to buy those goods. So
| instead of getting rid of all that money a year ago, I
| got 30% gains in the market.
| nly wrote:
| Perks on credit cards in the UK are almost non existent
| because the fees are so low compared to he US.
| Historically the EU regulated to crush credit card
| transaction fees.
|
| That said, I do get annual cashback of 1% on one of my
| cards.
| cjrp wrote:
| Cashback perks aren't great, but the airline credit cards
| are quite good if you'll definitely use the miles.
| navbaker wrote:
| We use a card that gives generic points instead of
| airline miles on each dollar spent and those points pay
| for our vacation lodging each year.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| > can't be overcharged, can't go below zero,
|
| ...and can't get a mortgage and buy a house because you
| have no credit score.
| simonh wrote:
| You don't have to have running shoes to be able to run. I
| haven't owned a credit card for 15 years and my credit
| score is just fine.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| That's not how it works in the UK though. You need to be
| having credit in order to build up credit score.
| simonh wrote:
| Sure, I've taken out loans, had several mortgages,
| multiple bank accounts, paid all my utility bills. All of
| that can influence your credit scores.
|
| It is possible some people could have so little credit
| history that having a card for a while might be
| beneficial. I don't know enough about the system to be
| sure, so maybe I was being a bit flippant, for which I
| apologise.
| sildur wrote:
| That only applies to the US.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| Nope, that also applies in the UK.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| It's wildly overstated in the US. Having a CC and not
| paying it off in a timely manner definitely affect your
| score but the difference between having a card and not
| having one isn't as big as people make out.
|
| If you have proof of income you're going 90% of the
| distance.
| stuaxo wrote:
| This happened to me (for clarity: in the UK) and I had to
| get a credit card and use it for a year.
|
| No idea where the card is now, but the credit systems
| seemed to become aware of me after that.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| > _Never owned a credit card, don 't have the slightest
| wish to do so._
|
| Bizarrely, never owning a credit card will negatively
| impact your credit rating.
| [deleted]
| mnw21cam wrote:
| It's more correct to say that never having any credit
| facility negatively impacts your credit rating. I have a
| credit card now, but several years ago I didn't, and I
| had a perfect credit rating, by dint of the multitude of
| other credit agreements that I had for the general
| running of my life, like mortgage, telephone, internet,
| etc.
| retube wrote:
| Not in the UK
| [deleted]
| tazjin wrote:
| I don't think that's really true outside of the US.
| stuaxo wrote:
| No, it's true in the UK.
|
| I had this issue, and had to get a credit card and buy
| stuff on it for a year... basically without using credit
| you may not have a credit rating.
|
| I always lose my cards and have to get them replaced, so
| have been back on just a debit card for a few years now.
| scaryclam wrote:
| The issue isn't not having a credit card, it's never
| having used any credit to create a good credit history.
| Setting up a few direct debits should work in lieu of
| getting a credit card.
| j_mo wrote:
| That's odd, I got a mortgage approved at 19yrs old, in
| the UK, with no credit usage/history whatsoever. I had a
| credit card but I'd held it for about 3 months at the
| time, and have never used it to this day.
|
| Only since then have I actually had anything on my credit
| report (monthly broadband payment, phone contract,
| monthly car insurance payment because I didn't want to
| keep paying the whole 3k up front every year after moving
| out, etc) and despite that the score has remained
| unchanged.
| cjrp wrote:
| What was the loan to value though?
| chanc3e wrote:
| Can second this.
|
| I had to get a credit card as mortgage got denied because
| my credit record didn't exist. Three months after the
| card, I got approved.
|
| This is despite me earning an extravagant wage relative
| to my age for over a decade and never missing
| rent/utilities/council tax.
|
| Bad system.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I think this is being misstated by GP.
|
| It isn't that a lack of credit card hurts your credit
| rating, but that a lack of _any_ credit hurts your credit
| rating in Canada or the US.
|
| There are other ways to get an initial credit rating than
| a credit card, although I agree that this is the path
| most easy, and chosen by many to get that first rating.
|
| The method I employed, was to buy a car and had a parent
| cosign. I made all the payments, and this was enough to
| kick start, and give me at good credit rating.
| scaryclam wrote:
| Not only this, but getting a credit card and _not_ using
| it can cause an issue for your credit, so it 's better to
| setup direct debits and other forms of credit than it is
| to get a card you never use.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Ah but, for most people it's easier to get a low-limit
| credit card in the UK, than it is to get any other
| unsecured loan.
|
| I also didn't say 'you need a credit card to get a good
| credit score', I said not having one will negatively
| impact your score. This is 100% correct; Your credit
| score is made up of various metrics on how you manage
| debt, one of which is credit cards. You will get a %
| boost if you have a card that you manage well, whereas
| without a credit card, you will get no boost at all in
| that category. Granted, you may make up for it overall in
| other categories, but in the main, for most people, my
| statement still stands. Credit scores start at 0, and
| only improve if you show you can manage debt across
| multiple products.
| scaryclam wrote:
| You can use direct debits instead of loans and are
| available for a really wide variety of payments, so is
| easier and safer than getting a credit card for many
| people.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Hmm. I think the issue here is, we are all in different
| regions. Not only does the country matter (Canada here),
| bit the region too (Quebec, Napoleonic civil code, and
| provincial laws).
|
| Credit bureaus are definitely legislatively controlled
| here, and court decisions have an effect on them too.
| mbg721 wrote:
| The way this works in the US is nuts. I had to get a
| parent to co-sign the loan for my first car (or else they
| wouldn't lend me money at any rate), but then I spent a
| year paying a monthly fee to borrow my own money with a
| "secured credit card" and instantly I'm good for 40
| grand, apparently.
| socialdemocrat wrote:
| I know this is a thing in the US, but in Norway where I
| am from it doesn't matter. Nobody gets a credit card here
| improve credit rating. I doubt people do they in most of
| Europe.
|
| When somebody does a credit check on you they don't get a
| score, only a remark on whether that person has done any
| negative with respect to their credit worthiness. Thus
| there is really only the negatives which count.
| tigershark wrote:
| In U.K. it definitely helps your credit score.
| GoodbyeMrChips wrote:
| Except we don't have a "credit score" in the UK.
|
| Credit reference agencies instead report credit history.
|
| The difference is a subtle but very important one, as it
| allows companies to assess your individual circumstances,
| rather than base decisions on an arbitrary score.
|
| The above misunderstanding is so commonplace that the
| Redit UKPersoanlFinace sub had (has?) a bot explaining
| this on every UK post mentioning 'credit score'. Here
| "credit scores" are instead a marketing gimmick launched
| by credit reference agencies to get consumers to
| subscribe to monitoring services. The 'score' they give
| is meaningless.
|
| https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2021/06/martin-lewis-
| cred...
| ryanlol wrote:
| It works _exactly_ like this in the US too. The numbers
| shown to consumers are not what big financial
| institutions base their decisions on.
|
| By the same logic credit scores don't exist in the US
| either. It's just an approximation, your bank still makes
| their own decisions.
| gifnamething wrote:
| Expecting someone to lend you 6 figures when you've never
| displayed any ability to repay 2 is far more bizarre.
| maccard wrote:
| A credit rating basically isn't considered for a mortgage
| in the UK. They will check a report, and maybe request
| you pay outstanding debts (I was asked to clear my CC
| balance before completion both times), but unless you
| have a fraud marker or are bankrupt it won't affect you.
| Mortgages are secured on the asset, so it's far less
| risky than a personal loan of 5x less - the bank can
| seize the asset and force the sale of the home (and that
| difference in risk is reflected in the difference in
| borrowing rates).
| chanc3e wrote:
| My experience is they do indeed dig into your credit
| report and will approve/deny based on it. Not sure where
| your information to the contrary comes from?
|
| https://www.which.co.uk/money/mortgages-and-
| property/mortgag...
| carnitine wrote:
| They explicitly mention a report. It's just the number
| rating which is irrelevant.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Most UK CC T&Cs state explicitly "If you have a home, we
| will go after it if you default." Personal loans have
| similar recourse.
|
| Neither are truly unsecured. It just takes longer than an
| outright repossession because it takes two or three court
| claims instead of just one.
|
| The debt collection industry relies on this, and
| regularly forces sales of property to pay back CC and
| other debts.
|
| So CCs are disastrous for people who can't pay their
| debts. Not only are the interest rates extortionate, but
| for lenders they're almost as safe as a secured loan. And
| because of the high rates they can be considerably more
| profitable.
| egman_ekki wrote:
| Maybe you displayed the ability to not go into debt
| unnecessarily, which could be also a signal of financial
| ability. Getting into debt just to demonstrate you can
| pay it off is a bit like having to catch a virus so that
| the doctor can tell you you're healthy once you're done
| with it.
|
| But it's true that in the era of negative interest rates,
| only silly people don't owe money.
| another-dave wrote:
| I guess using the analogy -- your doctor won't tell you
| "you've a great immune system" if you've never caught a
| bug at all. Maybe you've a really weak immune system,
| they just don't know.
|
| Not going into debt unnecessarily is a great thing, but
| it's not a data point in your favour, it's the absence of
| a data point.
| swarnie wrote:
| Such a broken system.....
|
| I have to spend everything on a credit card, then when i
| get home from shopping 45 minutes later go and pay it off
| using a debt card.
|
| Its so unfriendly for the consumer.
| [deleted]
| adav wrote:
| Why not rely on direct debit to pay the full balance?
| [deleted]
| swarnie wrote:
| Poor management on my part, i'd rather know its done and
| keep a watch on my spending day to day.
| scatters wrote:
| Which demonstrates that you in fact are bad with money,
| so the system is working as intended. If you don't trust
| yourself with day-to-day spending, why should a lender
| trust you with a loan representing months or years of
| income?
| stuaxo wrote:
| Same here, it's unnecessary overhead.
| cjrp wrote:
| I've not seen a credit card where you can't automatically
| pay the full balance by direct debit each month. You do
| still have to do some maths (actual balance = current
| account balance - card balance) but I don't worry about
| it not being paid off.
| Blackstone4 wrote:
| Don't most people do this with a credit card they pay off
| most months? This is what I do plus credit cards give
| more protection than debit cards.
|
| I have the majority of my net worth invested at one of my
| brokers and I tend to hold minimal cash in my bank
| account...better to be invested than hold cash these
| days.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Vanquis also for immigrants and people fresh to the UK. As an
| EU national I remember being the unbanked pariah who had to
| pitch around 20 high street banks to open an account. Then to
| open a business account was even harder, actually similar
| difficulty to getting an investment. This was way before
| Revolut or Transferwise, it's a non-issue now.
| dazc wrote:
| I use my credit card for most stuff. 1)I get reward points
| 2)I get better consumer protection.
| libeclipse wrote:
| Most of your comment is simply not true
| barrkel wrote:
| You're right, my perception was influenced by how many of my
| cards are debit cards or debit-like (i.e. prepay of some
| kind). When those switched issuer over the years, it was
| always Mastercard -> Visa.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| NatWest have recently informed me that my Visa Debit card
| will be changing over to Mastercard Debit at the end of the
| year.
|
| Feels like a lot of places are shunning Visa at the moment.
|
| Other than getting a new card number (which some could say is
| a GOOD thing) switching from Visa to Mastercard in the UK has
| hardly any impact as 99% of places accept both.
| tim333 wrote:
| >99% of debit cards are Visa [in the UK]
|
| Not quite that bad. In 2019 it was 82% visa 17% mc
|
| and since there has been a move towards mastercard. My main
| bank, FirstDirect switched my debit card over this year. I
| also use Wise which is also with mastercard.
| te_chris wrote:
| We put all our purchases on credit cards here in the UK
| (London) - but pay them off monthly. Amex Gold and Barclays
| Platinum Visa (it has 0 overseas fees, but a bit of a stingy
| limit. mostly just used where Amex isn't accpeted). Amazon
| lets you spend Amex points, so guessing the tie up runs deep.
| Best not to read into fights between gods.
| kinnth wrote:
| 100% I pay for almost everything on AMEX to get the points
| and use Monzo debit for the rest. Amazon has my amex linked
| and I use it for 100% of purchases.
|
| Most people in the uk chase points and credit cards have
| much better points and bonus' than debits.
| lmilcin wrote:
| > Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit
| cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards.
|
| I worked in credit card payments (on acquiring side).
|
| Any market share advantage between Visa and Mastercard is very,
| very fragile. It is basically your choice which card to pull
| out for payment.
|
| It is also why Visa and Mastercard these are so alike almost in
| every aspect. When one does something, the other copies it.
|
| The only reason this is still split between two companies is
| exactly because of this parity between products. People have no
| reason to prefer one over other and simply toss a coin to make
| their choice.
|
| When I had chance to configure my phone to do NFC payments, my
| bank supported it only for Mastercard, so I configured
| Mastercard and that's how it is now. I know a lot of people got
| Mastercard because here (in Poland) it was tiny bit faster than
| Visa.
|
| If Amazon bans UK Visa, people will not stop using Amazon. They
| will either pull out the other card or grumble for couple of
| days and get Mastercard.
|
| It is likely Visa has _NO_ negotiation power here. They are the
| ones that have commoditized themselves and are easily
| replaceable for their competitor. It is likely Amazon is well
| aware of this and this is just a show of strength that will be
| followed by Visa submitting to it because they have no choice.
| pishpash wrote:
| I've understood Visa and Mastercard to share some kind of
| relationship but cannot find the source any more.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Yes, they are actually working together a lot. There is PCI
| (Payment Card Industry) and then there is EMV. There is
| probably more but the two have been important from my point
| of view.
|
| The main motivation for this is to make payment technology
| transparent to the user (as in use any card anywhere,
| expect similar behavior, etc.) A lot of this is
| standardized so much that it is virtually the same for
| both.
|
| And I know this, because it was my job to implement these
| standards. I calculated some 17 thousand pages of
| specifications in various forms.
|
| Both Visa and Mastercard gain a lot form this because it is
| not a zero-sum game. Because of this cooperation people
| have been steadily increasing their use of credit card
| payments and this I think created a lot more revenue than
| they could have ever created for themselves by winning a
| cutthroat competition.
| softveda wrote:
| Amazon Australia has started charging 0.5% for Visa cards. In
| Australia a merchant can charge more for payment by credit card
| but only up to the actual extra cost they incur.
| ericyan wrote:
| This practise is illegal in the UK and that's probably why
| they decided to this instead
| gambiting wrote:
| It's illegal everywhere in the EU as well. If a merchant
| accepts debit/credit cards then they are not allowed to
| charge extra for using them.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I see this repeated often, but it's not unusual in
| Denmark for credit cards, especially corporate cards, to
| have an extra fee applied.
|
| Example in English: https://www.flysas.com/en/help-and-
| contact/faq/booking/why-d...
|
| And in Danish: https://www.tivoli.dk/da/om/vilkaar-og-
| betingelser/betalings... (or without the reasoning in
| English: https://www.tivoligardens.com/en/om/vilkaar-og-
| betingelser/b... )
| gambiting wrote:
| I had a quick look at the rules here in UK, and yes,
| apparently you can still be charged, but only for using
| business/corporate credit cards, not otherwise:
|
| https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-
| money/borrowing-m...
| ericyan wrote:
| Yeah, the catch is "if a merchant accepts..."
|
| I live in the Netherlands and biggest supermarket chain
| here, Albert Heijn, is strictly Mastro-only. This is not
| a problem for the locals, but you will find angry reviews
| left by tourists on pretty much every ah branch in
| Amsterdam on Google Maps.
| Blackstone4 wrote:
| I was there the other week and they refused my work Amex
| but accepted my personal MasterCard credit card. Not sure
| your statement is accurate.
| ericyan wrote:
| As a general rule, ah (and bol.com) do not accept credit
| cards (or debit cards that need to go through the credit
| card network). This can be independently verified on
| Google Maps if you look for those 1-star reviews.
|
| There are a small handful ah branches (see below) in
| tourist spots that does accept credit cards. In all other
| places, you should see posters apparently made by the
| staff that puts red crosses on Visa, MasterCard and AMEX
| logos near the entrance and/or the checkout kassa.
|
| From https://www.ah.nl/klantenservice/onze-
| winkels/zelfscannen-en... (in Dutch):
|
| > In sommige winkels kan je met je creditcard of
| buitenlandse pre-paid debetkaart betalen: de winkels op
| Schiphol, veel stationswinkels, de winkel achter het
| paleis op de Dam in Amsterdam en de winkel aan de
| Weteringschans in Amsterdam. Bij alle andere winkels kan
| dit niet.
| rescbr wrote:
| Once I had an interesting experience at AH when I used my
| combined debit/credit card.
|
| It wasn't a branch that accepted credit cards (it was
| full of crossed off card logos), the clerk saw my foreign
| card with Mastercard logo and said that wouldn't work but
| I insisted by showing it had a Maestro logo on the back.
| Reluctantly they said OK, go ahead and for everyone's
| surprise, it worked.
|
| The transaction ended showing up on my credit card
| statement, and to this day I really don't know what
| happened. I know that international withdrawals (that
| should use Maestro network) appear on my checking
| account. Who knows...
| ericyan wrote:
| If I have to guess, it probably have something to do with
| the the migration to MasterCard Debit from Maestro.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| That doesn't make sense with 0.3% EU costs.
| kuschku wrote:
| It does make sense because Girocard and some variations
| of Maestro only charge 0.125%
| andrewshadura wrote:
| Well, Maestro is going away next year or so, so not for
| long.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Are foreigners only 0.175% clients?
| gambiting wrote:
| Sure, and in theory that should be the prime example of
| "free market" at work - merchant doesn't want to accept
| visa/mastercard? They will lose customers then, if that's
| acceptable to them then that's their choice.
| ericyan wrote:
| This would make sense if (and only if) all other things
| are equal. In reality it is slightly more complicated
| than that.
|
| The second-largest chain, Jumbo, will happily accept my
| AMEX credit card. In many cases, the groceries are even
| (slightly) cheaper there. That's why it has been my
| preferred place to do the groceries for years. But I find
| my self goes to ah much more often than Jumbo recently,
| simply because I moved and there is one right across the
| street.
| caf wrote:
| Same if they pass on the card costs to the customers
| though - card user doesn't want to pay the true cost of
| using their card, they can choose to shop elsewhere.
| mFixman wrote:
| The Australian practice seems fair though.
|
| If you force cash and credit card transactions to be the
| same price then the extra 0.5% is charged to everyone, and
| outside of extreme cases like this post there is little
| incentive for credit card operators to lower their fee.
| maccard wrote:
| Why is that only applied to credit card transactions, and
| not transactions by debit card (which banks also charge
| for) or for handling cash?
| [deleted]
| mcbain wrote:
| 0.5% on Visa credit. Visa debit has no charge.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be
| higher than Amex - there's something going on behind the scenes
| here."_
|
| Especially considering that card transaction fees (in the EU
| and UK) are capped by the Interchange Fee Regulation (IFR) [1]
|
| But I suppose Amazon processes card payments in such huge
| volumes that they expect to get rates below the cap limits
| (0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards), or Visa are
| applying excessive additional fees outside of the interchange
| fee?
|
| [1] https://www.psr.org.uk/our-work/card-payments/the-ifr/
| orra wrote:
| The UK has hinted it wants to increase the cap, as a "Brexit
| dividend".
| PeterisP wrote:
| Why would a larger cap benefit the UK or its government in
| any way? It's not like the "dividend" would be received by
| them, it's an effective +1% tax on all payments from
| consumers to the banks.
| ookware wrote:
| Because our government would appear to work more for the
| banks than the public
| pricechild wrote:
| Well that's annoying. My bank (Natwest) just recently sent me a
| letter to boast we're getting shiny new VISA credit cards to
| replace our existing Mastercards. (which aren't near expiry)
| 00deadbeef wrote:
| That's weird because they're moving their debit cards from Visa
| to Mastercard
| blitzar wrote:
| I guess the kickback on the credit card fees is too good to
| pass up for Natwest.
| numair wrote:
| I would be interested to know if this has something to do with
| premium interchange. If it does, Amazon has basically just
| declared war on a bunch of fintechs' no-/low-fee business models,
| where you get a ton of services and they get your interchange
| revenue. It'll be interesting to see how that war plays out, if
| that's what's happened.
| funshed wrote:
| UK Amex procesing fees are outragious compared to UK Visa
| processing fees. This does not make much logical sense to me.
| rexreed wrote:
| Is it possible to feel sorry for neither of these parties? Visa
| sucks for raising interchange rates and Amazon sucks for blocking
| customers who have those cards. The customer ends up suffering
| since Visa will still make their revenues and Amazon doesn't care
| since customers will find a means to pay.
|
| All these increasing fees definitely is a sign of pending high
| inflation world-wide, however. We know who stands to lose from
| not only the higher fees but also inflation, the typical
| consumer.
| londons_explore wrote:
| If this is a negotiation tactic, why is it not a global proposal?
|
| Perhaps because bank transfer is very developed in the UK, and
| wire transfers could totally replace credit cards, with lower
| fees?
|
| On mobile devices, the effort to set up a wire transfer or direct
| debit is only maybe 1 minute for most users, and that's a one
| time thing, and unlike credit cards they don't expire either.
| Fees for the use of the system are effectively nil.
| ABS wrote:
| likely because Visa is increasing their fees in UK since Brexit
| unshackled them from some EU caps
| havkd wrote:
| I like this. If that's the case, it proves the free market
| works. You don't need regulations when corporations can
| strongarm one another.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Right, they strongarm each other, then collude and together
| strongarm the rest of the market.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is not an improvement, it's basically saying you don't
| need to worry about Mothra because Godzilla will turn up to
| save us. Ignoring those who get trampled under the fighting
| behemoths.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Most users _either_ have a MasterCard _or_ have a visa, and
| the majority of people couldn 't get the other without
| substantial hassle. It would normally involve switching to
| a new bank, which in the UK is less frequent than divorces.
|
| That gives visa a lot of lock in - and the competition is
| no longer MasterCard but instead openbanking API's.
| sorokod wrote:
| Just like you don't need peace treaties between countries,
| they can just duke it out on the battlefield,
| amelius wrote:
| > If that's the case, it proves the free market works.
|
| The free market has many problems. This isn't one.
| agilob wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/04/27/apple-
| go...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/technology/google-
| faceboo...
| worble wrote:
| Oh yeah, this is a real win for consumers now that a large
| proportion of them are locked out from using their credit
| cards on Amazon.
| ralferoo wrote:
| Presumably Amazon have some stats of how frequently each
| type of card is used on their platform, even if that's
| just aggregation done on the first 4 digits of the card
| number.
|
| They are probably well placed to determine how many
| customers use Visa with them versus Mastercard, or even
| have both and use both on the website. The subset who
| have only ever used Visa on Amazon may or may not have an
| alternative card they could use, but they will presumably
| have factored in the cost of potentially losing the sale
| entirely as a result of refusing Visa.
|
| With Visa so entrenched in UK finance, it's not going to
| be received by customers the same way as Amex being
| refused (let's face it, Amex is refused most places
| because the only people who use it do so because they are
| getting cashback which is paid for by the merchant having
| increased fees). Instead, Visa will be the card they've
| always used, so if Amazon stop accepting it, I think a
| lot of customers will just shop elsewhere instead.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Consumers can also strongarm Amazon.
|
| If everyone using Visa credit cards stop buying on Amazon
| starting 19th January, Amazon will probably budge.
|
| But since everyone has a debit card Amazon must be
| betting that if they do stop accepting Visa credit cards
| then customers will just shrug and switch card because
| they really, really need that stuff now.
| londons_explore wrote:
| You underestimate what proportion of people have $3.50 as
| their current account balance and need the 'credit'
| ability of a credit card...
| 00deadbeef wrote:
| They aren't locked out yet and presumably this is a
| tactic to get Visa to lower their fees.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Perhaps because bank transfer is very developed in the UK,
| and wire transfers could totally replace credit cards, with
| lower fees?
|
| Or, you know, Visa debit cards? Amazon don't actually let you
| pay with Faster Payments or direct debit AFAIK? And you can't
| wire transfer money you don't have, which is the whole point of
| a _credit_ card in the first place.
|
| No, this is going to be something weird about credit.
| 0xy wrote:
| It is being rolled out globally. Amazon instituted a very hefty
| fee for Visa transactions in Australia. No such fee for Amex or
| MasterCard payments.
| bogle wrote:
| In the UK you aren't able to add a fee for using a credit
| card over another form of payment.
| softveda wrote:
| Not hefty but an annoying 0.5%. In Australia they can't
| surcharge more than the actual cost involved in processing
| the card payment.
| PeterSm wrote:
| I'm not convinced that this is a genuine email. Maybe someone
| here can explore..
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| The BBC are running with it[1], so it's must be _true_. /s
|
| --
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59306200
| fredoralive wrote:
| Why wouldn't it be genuine? If you hacked Amazon's email system
| to send a mass email to customers, why send that?
|
| It's clearly some sort of negotiation ploy over fees.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Has anyone successfully nationalised/regulated into sanity this
| business? It's 2021, buying stuff should involve neither precious
| metals nor weird faceless financial cooperatives owned by private
| banks.
| larschdk wrote:
| Denmark has a standardized national debit card. Physical stores
| are not allowed to charge a fee, but online stores are
| (typically DKK1.50/$0.25). Works great, but obviously only for
| stores in Denmark. They are almost always combined with a Visa
| debit card on the same card for a yearly fee (typically
| DKK150/$25).
| rightbyte wrote:
| Really? Nice. There is no need to have Visa et al. take a
| 1-3% tax on everything.
| blowfish721 wrote:
| Downside of this as a tourist/visitor in Denmark at least
| some smaller shops force you to pay with cash since they
| don't accept visa/mastercard but only the national debit
| card. Just a minor annoyance at least as a Swede since we
| don't usually carry cash these days.
| toyg wrote:
| I reckon a situation like that is un-European, the
| Commission will probably step in at some point.
| baq wrote:
| that would be suicidal, but an EU initiative for
| incentivizing low-fee cashless payments is not out of
| question.
| Dah00n wrote:
| How is it un-European for Denmark to prefer (if they
| actually do so) a national Danish (hence EU member) card
| above an American card?
| drstewart wrote:
| Danes have to pay a fee in order to get payment cards? I
| thought consumer protection was big there.
| kuschku wrote:
| Why? There's a real cost associated with running the cards.
| In the US, that's paid by selling your data, by the
| percentages the merchants pay (which in turn is paid by
| everyone, even those customers paying cash) and by the
| extreme fees for not paying your bill on time.
|
| If all these consumer-unfriendly practices are banned, you
| see the real cost of such cards. Same happens for many
| customers in Germany: pay 10EUR/month for a bank account
| with included VISA/MasterCard, pay 30EUR-60EUR/year for
| such a card, or use only a national card.
| drstewart wrote:
| Funny how Europeans consider anything that they have to
| pay for a "real cost" that's justified.
|
| What are your thoughts on ATM fees? Is there a "real
| cost" to maintaining ATM fees? Should it be passed to the
| consumer? Or is it an unfriendly consumer practice that
| Europe has rightfully "banned" (aka not common)? It seems
| to me they're just charging you another way by selling
| your data or whatever!
|
| How much do Europeans pay for Whatsapp, by the way?
|
| Also, can you share the European law that bans merchants
| paying a percentage for financial transactions to the
| payment processor? I'm unfamiliar with it, and am also
| curious to understand how Visa and Mastercard exist at
| all in Europe given the banning of this consumer-
| unfriendly practice.
| kuschku wrote:
| > How much do Europeans pay for Whatsapp, by the way?
|
| If I had my way, the 1EUR/year fee would be back ;)
|
| > What are your thoughts on ATM fees?
|
| I hate them, but I can understand why they exist and are
| still legal to this date (although it is inconvenient
| having to find an ATM that has a contract with my bank).
|
| > Also, can you share the European law that bans
| merchants paying a percentage for financial transactions
| to the payment processor?
|
| It's limited to 0.2%, which is why the card companies
| have been asking customers to pay a monthly cost for the
| cards instead.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| Eh, Russia kind of has a thing =/
| Mayzie wrote:
| Pretty much all Australian & New Zealand cards use a system
| called EFTPOS[1] in addition to Visa / MasterCard credit since
| the 80s. Fees are virtually nil, and payments are instant. They
| cannot be used for online purchases though, I believe.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFTPOS#Australia
| mjul wrote:
| There are also startups such as Swiipe [1] that replace debit
| card payments by direct app-initiated account-to-account
| transfer.
|
| This is enabled by the payment service provider APIs as per the
| EU Payment Services Directive (PSD 2) and the EU Single Euro
| Payments Area (SEPA) infrastructure that make these payments
| free and "instant".
|
| [1] https://swiipe.com/en/
| [deleted]
| cromka wrote:
| While not nationalized or regulated, Poland is an interesting
| example with its ubiquitous application of BLIK, a bottom-up
| initiative of major Polish banks:
|
| https://blik.com/en
|
| https://thepaypers.com/thought-leader-insights/blik-and-the-...
|
| " _(...) at the end of 2020 BLIK overtook payment cards in
| terms of the number of transactions made in global ecommerce
| (Polish and foreign) for the first time._ "
|
| You can use it everywhere: from your local convenience store to
| Uber or Amazon Poland. It's also a Polish Venmo, or rather
| Zelle, where you can send money p2p using a phone number.
|
| They are now experimenting with contactless payments, as well
| as trying to integrate with international online payment
| systems, and if those are a success, the future of
| Visa/Mastercard in Poland is rather... complicated.
|
| And if Poland continues to be the predicting greenfield it was
| so far for FinTech, the decentralized, national solutions like
| these are likely to largely displace the 3rd parties of
| Visa/Mastercard/Amex alike.
|
| That having said, one of BLIK's board members is the Mastercard
| CEE country manager, so... looks like they _do_ anticipate that
| change.
| ulzeraj wrote:
| I like Blik. Is dead simple to use specially on the internet.
|
| Did not knew about the p2p thing. Thanks.
| cromka wrote:
| Indeed, it's super easy. And safer than cards, especially
| when withdrawing money from ATMs where you only type in a
| code on the screen, so nothing can get skimmed.
|
| If it wasn't for the regular 2-5% I get back on my US-
| issued credit cards, I'd be mostly using BLIK only when in
| Poland.
| searchableguy wrote:
| India has rupay as an alternative to visa and mastercard.
|
| https://www.rupay.co.in/
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| In Germany, we have our own debit card scheme called 'girocard'
| owned jointly by a group of German banks that has very low
| fees.
|
| Unfortunately, this card does not work for online payments,
| which has lead to PayPal being extremely popular. Other
| solutions, some national, some international exist as well, but
| have comparatively high fees.
|
| Amazon Germany allows users to pay via SEPA direct debit from
| any European bank account. That incurs virtually no fees (iirc
| it's a flat 8c for a successful transaction), but comes with
| other problems regarding authorization. Only the biggest
| merchants tend to offer this option.
|
| The European Payment Initiative (EPI) [0] is an ongoing effort
| towards online payments that work without trusting one
| particular private institution.
| ireadfaces wrote:
| I see a really good example in India's UPI. You can make
| payments upto $600 USD using that, it directly deducts from
| your bank account and you can do P2P too.
| 3guk wrote:
| Oh don't get me started with the EC card shenanigans - I've
| had so many problems in Munich with shops demanding an EC
| card as the only form of card accepted.
|
| Drives me crazy that in some cases it's either that (which is
| unavailable to non German residents) or cash....
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| Ironically, an EC card these days is just a MasterCard.
| They used to be called EC (EuroCheque) card, but rebranded
| in 2007 when MasterCard was ousted from the system. MC kept
| the brand rights and didn't do anything with them for a
| decade. Meanwhile people kept using the old name. Now,
| however, MC started using the brand for some debit
| MasterCards, which can lead to great confusion by
| unsuspecting merchants.
|
| That said, for many shops it was either girocard and cash
| or just cash only. Merchants just weren't willing to eat
| the fees associated with other card schemes.
|
| Things have changed, though. The EU has capped the
| interchange fees of four party debit and credit cards to
| 0.2% and 0.3% respectively and now most shops tend to
| accept MasterCard and Visa as well.
| amaccuish wrote:
| It's not just a MasterCard. There are still shops that
| will accept Maestro and not MasterCard. Further, some
| girocards, like mine, a V-Pay cards, Visa's equivalent,
| and not co-branded with Maestro.
| tchalla wrote:
| There's a reason for those so called "shenanigans".
|
| The merchant fees for EC card are the lowest amongst all
| cards. Pretty much all banks issue EC cards. Earlier,
| merchant fees could not be passed along to the consumer.
| Earlier this year, a change in regulation meant these fees
| would now be passed on to the consumer [0].
|
| I foresee a future where there will be two prices (1)
| Payment w/o credit card and (2) Payment with EC card. I
| don't see why EC card owners should bear the costs of
| people who want to use credit card as a convenience.
|
| [0] https://www.handelsblatt.com/finanzen/banken-
| versicherungen/...
| 3guk wrote:
| I would completely understand if other types of debit
| card were accepted - but at least in the vast majority of
| my arguments with local shop owners, Visa Debit or
| Mastercard Debit are not accepted - cards which are
| otherwise accepted globally.
|
| I understand if the the fees accepted need to be added on
| and covered by the consumer who wants to pay with the
| most convenient form of payment they have - but again in
| Germany that's not even a possibility. I find it quite
| strange that it's one of the only places (if not the only
| place) in Western Europe where you struggle to pay with
| either cash or a card type that is only available in the
| country.
| Slartie wrote:
| I foresee a future in which the "EC card" (please let's
| call it Girocard, because that's it's name) ceases to
| exist in a few years.
|
| Banks are already in the process of issuing Visa or
| MasterCard debit cards to customers as top-of-wallet
| product, and issuing girocards only on request, sometimes
| also with additional fees. Visa/MC debit cards have much
| easier integration with Apple and Google Pay. And they
| can be used online, and are easier to be used
| internationally, as they are accepted in most places
| where Visa/MC credit cards are accepted, too.
|
| The recent deprecation of the Maestro card scheme by
| MasterCard, which has been co-badged on virtually every
| Girocard for many years and which allowed the cards to be
| used during international trips in most countries, has
| only resulted in aforementioned moves of banks away from
| the Girocard to be accelerated.
|
| If the EPI does not quickly come up with a card scheme
| that is a) very very cheap for merchants and b) rolled
| out quickly in all of Europe, the debit card market in
| Germany will fall into the hands of Visa and MasterCard.
| That's just how it is, unfortunately.
|
| The bad joke behind all of this is that this entire
| outcome has essentially been kick-started by the European
| Union moving to cap interchange fees on Visa/MC debit and
| credit transactions - a move against Visa and MC, but one
| that backfired and opened the doors for national card
| schemes to essentially be eaten alive by those very two
| actors. That's because that move made these transactions
| cheap enough for many big merchants to start accepting
| these cards in the first place. Before the cap, those
| rates were outrageously expensive, and virtually nobody
| outside of the travel business accepted them.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure that network owned by private banks is
| the worst possible thing. If properly regulated and open to
| everyone on same rules and fees.
|
| I would actually trust such one more than anything bought by
| government...
| toyg wrote:
| Buying is effectively a solved problem, the circuits will be
| de-facto nationalised across Europe very soon if they're not
| already, as an inevitable outcome of going cashless (which
| COVID19 accelerated). What will likely never be nationalised is
| _credit_ , that's where VISA/MSC/AMEX/MBNA will hang around for
| the foreseeable - unless some of the "new banks" like Revolut
| and Starling explode on a level where they can afford to start
| their own thing.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| Well that's annoying. Visa credit cards are very common in the
| UK, I myself use one for everything online. I don't know anyone
| who's got an American Express card in the UK
|
| Edit: Could it also be that Amazon offer their own Mastercard
| credit card and they're trying to nudge people towards that?
| aigo wrote:
| Fun fact: At M&S, 12% of payments taken online for delivery to
| London addresses are paid by Amex. The rest of the country?
| <3%.
| 00deadbeef wrote:
| Any idea why Amex would be so popular in London?
|
| I'd never even consider an Amex card due to my perception of
| it being something that many places won't even accept.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| London has a much higher [wealthy] international populous
| than the rest of the country. Amex business model is all
| about having a card that is accepted globally, and comes
| with lots of nice perks for the [wealthy] traveller.
| bb101 wrote:
| People with higher incomes can afford Amex's Platinum card,
| which includes good travel insurance, good customer
| service, access to a good hotel booking program, airport
| lounge access, boosted status with a few airlines, etc.
| Most places in the UK that cater to this segment also
| accept Amex.
|
| However, it's a charge card and not a credit card, so it
| does need to be paid off in full every month.
| benh14 wrote:
| Amex is more widely accepted in London, but thats a bit of
| a catch-22.
|
| Amex also has many more premium card with annual fees ,
| travel perks etc which might be more relevant for someone
| living in London.
| hocuspocus wrote:
| My guess:
|
| Lots of business meetings in London -> merchants need to
| accept Amex company cards -> people realize acceptance is
| high -> people look into Amex for their personal usage, for
| instance to enjoy higher rewards.
| dazc wrote:
| Status symbol?
| billyruffian wrote:
| I had my wallet nicked in Padstow on the last day of a
| trip there and was just about take the 3.5 hour drive
| home. Problem was I didn't have enough fuel to make it.
| My CC providers took ages to even answer the phone and
| cancel the cards. Amex dealt with it a just a few mins,
| arranged to courier a replacement card to me by the next
| day and authorised a fuelling stop for me on my way home.
| I'll never be without one, ever.
| dazc wrote:
| Fair point, I wasn't aware of this feature.
| bb101 wrote:
| I had a similar experience in Washington. Amex had an
| international courier deliver a new card within days. In
| the UK, the three companies that won't lose my custom
| (unless things go very downhill) are Amex, NFU Mutual and
| firstdirect. In my dealings with each, their staff come
| across as competent and efficient, with a get-stuff-done
| attitude and evidently empowered to make their own
| decisions.
| throaway46546 wrote:
| How did they authorize a fueling stop?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Out of curiosity, how did they manage to get you money
| without you having a physical card?
| billyruffian wrote:
| I went to an agreed petrol station, they'd authorised
| spend there. From memory, I think I just told them my
| name and that was all I needed to do: fill up, thank the
| staff, drive off.
| gppk wrote:
| Buisiness use.
| aix1 wrote:
| Some people (myself included) have a British Airways AmEx
| card to get a BA companion voucher every year.
| hhmc wrote:
| There's also a cashback card which is worthwhile over a
| certain expected spend.
| toyg wrote:
| Amex grants significantly higher credit limits than most
| banks. Londoners like to live an aspirational lifestyle in
| a hugely-overpriced city.
| mrep wrote:
| Really? Sure it doesn't have to do with the bank backing
| it? My Amex card has the second lowest limit of all my
| credit cards at a measly $6,500 whereas I have other
| cards with $30,000, $25,000, and $20,000 limits. Only one
| lower is my target card but they are known for having low
| limits.
| toyg wrote:
| I have a UK perspective. Here, to get a VISA-backed bank
| to grant you more than 6-8k is a real struggle, whereas
| Amex will happily start at 10-12k and grow from there.
| ryanlol wrote:
| >hugely-overpriced city
|
| If you compare the rental flats with other top European
| cities, it's really not overpriced.
|
| Look at a 6k eur pcm flat in Barcelona and London, in
| Barcelona you will find slightly bigger flats with
| terrible build quality and services. In London you'll get
| top quality fit and finish with excellent services.
|
| Good luck finding a building with a decent concierge team
| in most European capitals. It's almost unheard of.
|
| Luxury product for rich people? Yeah, of course.
| Overpriced? Definitely not, there simply aren't any
| viable alternatives to settle in.
| FDSGSG wrote:
| See my previous blog post on this subject:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26926718
| lmm wrote:
| Amex is positioned as a premium card for high earners, who
| mostly live in London.
| Kiro wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29250661 is saying the
| opposite so what is it?
| fredoralive wrote:
| Presumably confusion between debit (where Visa is common) and
| credit (where it isn't).
| ChrisRR wrote:
| HSBC and barclaycard are both Visa credit cards. Not sure
| about the rest
| IanCal wrote:
| HSBC credit cards were visa. I assume they'll change as
| first direct has.
| ealexhudson wrote:
| I got a new HSBC credit card just the other day - still
| Visa. If they're planning to change, they're taking their
| sweet time about it...
| em10fan wrote:
| They aren't that common.
|
| Only 2 of the high street banks offer them, and one is moving
| away from them.
|
| The rest are all Mastercard.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| Barclaycard was the most popular credit card in the UK at one
| point and they have ten million customers. As far as I know,
| they only offer visa credit cards.
| agilob wrote:
| I never knew Visa even has credit cards, only knew about MC and
| I know plenty of people who use Amex for everyday shopping.
| It's my default for pretty much ALL online payments, even
| grocery deliveries.
| docdeek wrote:
| Not sure about the UK but here in France Amazon has just
| started promoting a co-branded Amazon Amex card.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Those have existed in Germany for a long time. I got one, but
| canceled it after using up the 50EUR they gave me because the
| banking interface of their partner was atrocious.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In the UK Amazon has had a co-branded Mastercard credit card
| for at least a decade.
| 5754797 wrote:
| I love it when the power giants start smashing each other instead
| of the little guy, for once.
|
| No doubt they'll work out a deal where the consumer pays more.
| PeterSm wrote:
| Are you sure this isn't spam? I've received the email. It looks
| very suspicious to me...
| jackweirdy wrote:
| There is coverage in other national media
| https://news.sky.com/story/amazon-to-reject-customer-payment...
|
| But additionally I use the +servicename trick on Amazon, and
| the email was delivered to me at jack+amazon@myemail. If it's
| phishing it's incredibly well done as it came from the source
| to the recipients used by the source
| youngtaff wrote:
| There's a huge piece of information missing from that article and
| much of the reporting of Amazon's decision
|
| Visa have put up UK-EU interchange fees (as post Brexit they're
| not covered by the cap)
|
| But it affects Amazon because when you buy something from Amazon
| UK, you're billed by Amazon Luxembourg and Amazon UK then fulfil
|
| Amazon's tax avoidance strategy is part of the reason the charge
| has increased for them.
|
| If they billed from the UK it wouldn't affect them
| [deleted]
| rexreed wrote:
| More detail here: https://news.sky.com/story/visa-to-hike-
| interchange-fees-for...
|
| But a curious note from that article: "The move to increase
| interchange fees will bring it into line with MasterCard, its
| rival payments group, which announced a similar move in
| January."
|
| So why is Amazon restricting customers with Visa and not
| MasterCard?
|
| Can't be the UK-EU Post-Brexit policy alone.
| rtpg wrote:
| Maybe Mastercard made a deal with Amazon and Visa isn't
| budging
| rexreed wrote:
| THIS is probably the answer, everything else is just ...
| convenient.
| brummm wrote:
| The definitely get better interchange rates from Mastercard
| for the exclusivity.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| The Amazon branded credit card is a MasterCard in the UK. So
| Visa raises its rates to match MC, but AMZ has a special
| relationship with the latter.
| fragmede wrote:
| special, UK-based relationship, sounds like, which then is
| still neatly explained as a consequence to brexit - Amazon
| UK Visa = expensive EU charge, Amazon UK MC = UK charge.
| simfree wrote:
| Note that this special relationship only likely applies to
| transactions that use the Amazon MasterCard on Amazon.com,
| and MasterCards issued by other companies still impose full
| rates.
|
| Costco ran into this with American Express, though in
| retrospect the move to Visa seems like a worse move (more
| non-Costco Visa cards in circulation).
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > only likely applies
|
| I just want to stress that we both can only speculate.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| > MasterCards issued by other companies still impose full
| rates.
|
| Not at all. These exclusive acceptance deals do usually
| have lower-than-otherwise rates for all cards from that
| issuer, though perhaps not as low as the co-branded card.
|
| Think about it - if Costco had the same fees from a
| normal (not co-branded) Visa card as they did from a
| normal MasterCard, what incentive do they have to
| disallow normal MasterCards but still allow normal Visa
| cards?
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| > Costco ran into this with American Express, though in
| retrospect the move to Visa seems like a worse move (more
| non-Costco Visa cards in circulation).
|
| Could you expand on it a worse move for Costco? I thought
| it was great they moved to Visa because majority of
| Americans does not have Amex for credit card. The only
| way we can use our Visa card is through debit card only.
| So by moving to Visa (they have largest cardholders than
| Amex/Discover in America), Costco gained more consumers
| so the consumers can use their Visa credit card without
| resorting to debit card. It helps me a lot because I
| don't and never have Amex. Amex don't have a lot of
| retailers coverage (they used to be popular back in the
| 80s/90s), same for Discover. I recalled Amex have higher
| transaction fees, I believe higher than Discover, and
| Amex explicitly disallow passing the fee to the
| consumers. So made sense retailers prefer Visa/MC because
| they have lower transaction fees. This is what I remember
| back in the day when Costco made this announcement.
| ac29 wrote:
| Its bad for Costco because they pay higher fees on credit
| cards than debit cards or cash. Having an expanded pool
| of people using credit cards is good for the credit card
| holders, but not Costco. If Costco wanted more credit
| card users, there's no reason they couldnt take every
| credit major credit card.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Does this mean the reverse is also true? Unilever, Shell, and
| Blizzard went UK instead of FR/NL. There's more companies which
| switched UK to EU than EU to UK, but still.
| xeromal wrote:
| Does that mean they just need to set up a billing center in the
| UK?
| martin-adams wrote:
| And report profits in the UK then I presume.
| tim333 wrote:
| They may have to anyway. There is UK legislation
| restricting foreign companies trading directly in the UK
| which I guess wouldn't have applied to the EU pre brexit
| but would now.
| youngtaff wrote:
| In theory yes but then the sales are attributed to the UK
| company so it would affect their tax avoidance strategy
| cromka wrote:
| I laughed at your "just" :)
| xeromal wrote:
| Haha, for some reason, my Appalachian heritage likes to
| throw in just, just about anywhere.
| MadeThisToReply wrote:
| Do Appalachians say "just" a lot? I don't get it.
| xeromal wrote:
| At least the region where I'm from, it's kind of a filler
| word like uhm
| red_trumpet wrote:
| According to the BBC article[1], Mastercard also raised a fee
| for UK-EU transactions. But Mastercard has no problem here?
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59306200
| martin-adams wrote:
| Is that the case for non-digital goods? When I look at my
| credit card statement, all the Amazon transactions go to Great
| Britain.
| youngtaff wrote:
| But when you look at your Amazon order emails I bet it says
| "Sold by Amazon EU S.a.r.L." for stuff that comes directly
| from Amazon
| PeterisP wrote:
| Brexit is the gift that keeps on giving!
| stronglikedan wrote:
| The path to the better destination is sometimes the bumpier
| path.
| PeterisP wrote:
| I understand part of the motivation for Brexit was to have
| the freedom to make independent choices for various laws.
|
| It makes sense in theory, however, if I look at the actual
| changes where UK has now diverged from EU laws like this
| one, those changes seem bad for the UK public (in order to
| benefit e.g. banks), and it turns out this freedom for
| politicians to do whatever they want somehow results in
| even less accountability to the interests of British public
| than the unelected unaccountable Brussels officials cut off
| by Brexit. Sad.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| I don't know what power or leverage a country of 65 million
| thinks it has over the world. Companies / trading partners
| can simply ignore the UK now with few consequences. The UK
| has been on a long, slow decline of global relevance since
| the Victorian era. I don't know why that would stop with
| Brexit.
| nicky0 wrote:
| The point is it's now just another country on an equal
| footing with the rest. Unlike the EU members which have
| to ask the Commission for permission to scratch their
| ass.
| hexxagone wrote:
| If you knew anything about the EU institutions, you would
| know that the Commission's role is only to enforce rules
| that member states have agreed upon but it has _no_
| power. Of course facts do not fit with the Brexiters'
| rhetoric.
| aembleton wrote:
| Who instigates the creation of a directive? I thought
| that was one of the roles of the commission.
| Bayart wrote:
| Every region has been trying to consolidate international
| power blocks to _specifically_ avoid having to deal on
| the back of Westphalian sovereignty alone, that is to
| _not_ be on an equal footing.
| youngtaff wrote:
| We're certainly not on an equal footing.
|
| Trade deals are about power and taking the one for the EU
| as example because we (UK) need access to their markets
| more than they need access to ours then they always had
| the leverage
|
| It'll be the same with US, China etc.
|
| Even in the trade deals we've achieved with countries
| like New Zealand we've not been able to take advantage of
| being a larger economy and we've allowed lamb imports
| just to get a deal
| wayoutthere wrote:
| But they're not on equal footing with the global
| superpowers -- the EU has significant leverage by
| representing nearly a billion people. The UK had an
| outsized voice in EU politics, where now it's just a
| small fish in an ocean of sharks.
|
| The UK is basically Mexico now. You saw how well their
| trade negotiations with the EU went; expect the US and
| China to walk all over them too.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Zero trolling here. You wrote: <<representing nearly a
| billion people>> My rule of thumb is about 500M. (Google
| says 445M.) Where is the other 500M?
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Was doing it off the top of my head; was off on the exact
| number but the sentiment holds. The main benefit of the
| UK has been that it was an English-speaking intermediary
| for US companies. The Netherlands and Germany are filling
| that role as basically every white collar worker speaks
| fluent English.
|
| The main power lever the UK has at this point on the
| global stage is the fact that its banks orchestrate and
| facilitate global money laundering at the intersection of
| corporations, organized crime and autocratic regimes. And
| is rapidly losing that role to crypto.
| hash9 wrote:
| > the EU ... has nearly a billion people
|
| More like under half billion (~447.0 million).
|
| >The UK is basically Mexico now
|
| Except it has a much bigger more advanced economy and a
| ton of other differences but carry on with the hyperbole.
|
| > The Netherlands and Germany are filling that role ...
|
| Just recently Royal Dutch Shell just switched
| headquarters to UK from NL, maybe there are some
| advantages then.
|
| > Was doing it off the top of my head
|
| Any more facts you want to come up with from the top of
| your head? I think I'll just disregard the rest of your
| facts then.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| My reply is less harsh/dismissive than @hash9. Your last
| paragraph is powerful. I do think sometimes that I
| seriously underestimate the financial advantage that UK
| gains by having "selectively weak financial regulation"
| (my term). They are a like a Big Singapore, that pretends
| to be very well regulated, but looks the other way when
| autocrats want to buy 20M pound flats in Central London.
|
| I expect they will try to extend their advantage in the
| coming years by using "selective legislation" to
| encourage multinational corporations to re-home to the
| UK. See: Unilever and Shell. This is only the beginning
| in my view.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| I wouldn't count on this working out long term. If this
| becomes the main advantage the UK has, it just becomes a
| consolidated target for anti-corruption initiatives. A
| country like that is also not a good one to live in, so
| they should expect to lose Scotland, NI and Wales to the
| EU. You only need London to launder money.
| belltaco wrote:
| It won't stop, it will accelerate. UK had special deals
| in the EU plus outsized power.
| bildung wrote:
| If the path keeps being bumpy you probably took a wrong
| turn.
| cutler wrote:
| Amen. The great British public still have their heads in the
| sand in the wake of lorry driver shortages, nursing staff
| shortages and doctor shortages. You have to laugh or tear
| your hair out when the Home Office offers a 3-month reprieve
| hoping to lure exiled EU workers back to the UK.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Brexit may not be helping matters, but it certainly isn't
| responsible for those shortages. Every western country is
| facing the same issues.
|
| Schools near me in (not UK) are struggling to feed students
| lunch because the companies they had contracted to deliver
| their food dont have enough drivers. One company a state
| over just cancelled their contract with nearly 60 rural
| schools because they simply aren't able to deliver.
| Bayart wrote:
| >Every western country is facing the same issues.
|
| There's none of that in France, at least not for every
| day consumer goods. The prices of energy however have
| skyrocketed and semi-conductors are as lacking as
| anywhere else.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It helps if you say which country you're referring to.
| Maybe the USA? i.e. [1].
|
| As far as I've heard, the EU doesn't have these problems.
| It's only the UK. (I can't speak all the languages, but I
| asked friends from Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Spain and
| Italy if they'd seen reports of shortages in supermarkets
| and restaurants, but none have.)
|
| The American problem looks fixable with vaccination,
| testing etc. A lot of drivers in Britain left the
| country, and there isn't a short-term fix.
|
| [1]
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/us/politics/schools-
| labor...
| zdragnar wrote:
| You should ask more people, the driver shortage in
| various EU countries has been pretty widely reported.
|
| For example, https://www.ft.com/content/e8ca2a08-308c-432
| 4-8ed2-d788b074a...
| Symbiote wrote:
| I don't have an FT subscription.
|
| Driver shortages have been reported across the EU, but as
| far as I'm aware, food and fuel shortages are only in the
| UK.
|
| e.g. https://trans.info/en/there-s-a-europe-wide-hgv-
| driver-short...
| zdragnar wrote:
| I don't have one either, but the page didn't have any
| sort of paywall when I opened it. Sorry if one popped up
| for you :/
| Fnoord wrote:
| We have a shortage here in NL as well, and we're still part
| of EU, so I am not sure if/how Brexit is related. The job
| is being paid shit here in NL, and its high stress,
| especially since Covid-19. Its like blaming the current
| inflation on Covid-19; well, no, its the gas price which
| has gone up. And that is because of an artificial shortage
| by OPEC. I'm not sure why they do that though... I can only
| guess.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Do you have empty shelves in supermarkets as a result?
| Closed restaurants?
|
| There's a shortage all across Europe, but as far as I
| have heard it's only in the UK where it's sufficient to
| cause problems with food distribution.
|
| (Natural gas prices have reduced food production in the
| Netherlands:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-30/your-
| toma... but would we have seen the result of that yet?)
| Fnoord wrote:
| OP and I were talking about a shortage in healthcare
| workers...
|
| > The great British public still have their heads in the
| sand in the wake of lorry driver shortages, nursing staff
| shortages and doctor shortages.
|
| Restaurants open or closed is a luxury; /care
|
| Some food not available, might be a luxury, but the vids
| I've seen were quite shocking.
| tremon wrote:
| Yes to closed restaurants, but that's because of Covid
| response, not supply shortage. Supermarkets have reported
| no problems keeping stock.
| goodcanadian wrote:
| Polls have shown that a majority of "the great British
| public" now believe Brexit was a mistake, so I don't think
| it is fair to say they "still have their heads in the
| sand."
| r00fus wrote:
| Until the Tories and nationalists that pushed Brexit face
| consequences, you can still argue the public has their
| head in the sand.
| mdoms wrote:
| I'm not British but I follow your politics and with the
| quality of Labour candidates you guys dredge up it's no
| wonder people keep voting Tory.
| mattmanser wrote:
| It's a first past the post system. Which results in a two
| party duopoly and voting for anyone else can actively
| harm your interests.
|
| So we don't actually have a choice, our politics are as
| rigged as American politics. A small cabal pick the two
| PM choices, and we have to pick between bad or worse.
| r00fus wrote:
| The same forces that drove Tories to the extreme right
| also spent decades dividing Labour between itself.
|
| The first-past-the-post electoral system has no defense
| against well-funded interests essentially buying all the
| candidates.
|
| One could wonder if the substandard electoral system
| exists purely because of this flaw (or feature for the
| few powerful).
| Bayart wrote:
| France has a completely different political structure and
| electoral system, and yet we've broadly seen the same
| phenomenon of the right wing's center of gravity always
| moving righter (is that even a word ?) and the left wing
| digging and splintering its way into irrelevance. The
| difference being that the electoral system produced a
| centrist rather than a populist (but in both cases Macron
| and BoJo are a pure product of their respective
| countries' establishment).
|
| I don't think different systems differ so much as far as
| being rigged goes, it's just the rigging that changes. In
| the end, power is always in the process of cooptation.
| FerretFred wrote:
| Maybe.. it's the way it was implemented for what passes
| as a Government here (in the UK). It would've been better
| to keep the Common Market and just ditch the unelected
| Brussels bureaucrats. I've heard that Poland and France
| are making *exit noises too...
| Teandw wrote:
| This is only affecting Amazon in this instance as it's caused
| by Amazon's tax avoidance schemes. If they weren't deep into
| tax avoidance schemes, this wouldn't have affected them.
|
| Not really due to Brexit. Nice attempt at pushing your agenda
| though.
| Carstairs wrote:
| Yeah this is almost hilarious. One of the largest retailers
| in the world unable to continue with a tax avoidance scheme
| but clearly the bad thing here is brexit!
| aembleton wrote:
| If Brexit didn't happen, then Amazon could continue with
| their tax avoidance. So, it is due to Brexit.
|
| As the poster said - it is the gift that keeps on giving.
| ralferoo wrote:
| I've just found another link that isn't paywalled:
| https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/amazon-stop...
|
| This says that only Visa credit cards will be blocked, not Visa
| debit cards.
|
| I have a speculative guess that it might not just be about the
| merchant cost... It does seem that Visa offers more customer
| protection than Mastercard from what I can tell, so perhaps too
| many customers have got Visa involved for refunds because of the
| many dubious Amazon marketplace sellers listing fake or
| substandard products.
| c12 wrote:
| If I had to guess this is fall out from the rate increase Visa
| put in place after Brexit. Now that they are no longer
| restricted by pro-consumer caps they hiked the rates from 0.3%
| to 1.5% on credit card payments:
| https://www.ft.com/content/4820b619-4d35-4c6a-8523-fc685c047...
| makomk wrote:
| That's only for cross-border transactions between the EU and
| UK, and as the article says Mastercard is doing the same
| thing as well. I know there was a lot of speculation on
| social media that this was to blame but there's a lot of
| social media misinformation whenever someone finds a way to
| blame anything on Brexit... (Also, in practice people were
| getting ripped off by banks on the exchange rates for those
| cross-border transactiopns anyway. A lot of these EU measures
| require being part of the Euro to get the full benefit, and
| the UK isn't because we'd likely have gone the way of Italy
| and Greece if we joined.)
| helloguillecl wrote:
| It is mind blowing that in 2021 we have a payment system
| collecting a fairly big percentage of the economy's output.
|
| I don't know for sure, but 2% over revenue could easily be about
| what the government collects in corporate taxes derived from that
| revenue.
| username_my1 wrote:
| online payment transaction costs are huge, and completely
| unnecessary, and they will keep eating up on the value of the
| economy because they're a monopoly.
|
| at least all b2b transactions should move out of card payments,
| and hopefully with crepto or modern digital banks the b2c will
| follow, but right now too many banks are holding people's money
| and too many of them are consolidated / act as a cartel.
| viktorcode wrote:
| In this case it's a consequence of Brexit. In European economic
| area those fees are capped pretty low.
| danuker wrote:
| How so? Did leaving EU imply giving up laws already adopted
| while in the EU?
| robjan wrote:
| It did. In this case the EU interchange restriction of 0.3%
| has been revoked
| funshed wrote:
| It dit not. UK can choose which laws to repel.
| baq wrote:
| that was the point of leaving?
| deadbunny wrote:
| When the UK left the EU all EU laws previously put into UK
| law remained in place. Now the UK has left they can repeal
| those laws as they choose.
| refurb wrote:
| But that 2% fee is squeezed out from the processors anyways and
| flows back to consumers.
| helloguillecl wrote:
| I think this is not the case. Actually, it's more like they
| give you some restricted benefits matching something near the
| fees incurred. And only if you redeem them.
|
| It is also virtually cross subsidy from people paying
| cash/bank transfer to people paying by credit cards.
| refurb wrote:
| The full 2% isn't squeezed out but a big portion is. When I
| can sign up for a credit card, charge $5000 then get $800
| back, it's pretty clear the credit card company is using
| much of that 2% for customer acquisition.
|
| And as per my other comment, the customer isn't necessarily
| paying the full 2%. If credit card companies became
| charities and charged 0% would all prices drop by 2%? Of
| course not.
| Ekaros wrote:
| 2% sounds high, something under 1% sounds reasonable for
| unified network providing reasonably secure payment flow.
| Dealing with lot of cash isn't really free either. It gets
| quite complicated and less secure if sums were really to
| increase.
| pishpash wrote:
| 2-3% sounds reasonable to bootstrap taking into account risk,
| but the question is why hasn't it gotten lower (and
| processors seem to want it to go higher) as technology has
| improved? Probably not enough competition and incentive to
| make improvements and pass on savings.
| andycowley wrote:
| This was from March about Brexit-related interchange rates on
| Visa https://news.sky.com/story/visa-to-hike-interchange-fees-
| for...
| buro9 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "The move to increase interchange fees will bring it into line
| with MasterCard, its rival payments group, which announced a
| similar move in January"
|
| So it seems that Visa rate trails the Mastercard one and they
| will be the same.
| Liquid_Fire wrote:
| Note that this only applies to UK payments to EU companies.
| It would not apply to almost any Amazon purchases as they are
| usually from Amazon UK.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| This seems like one of those "who blinks first" negotiating
| strategies between big businesses.
| TekMol wrote:
| How much does Visa charge when someone pays, say, $100 to Amazon
| via a credit card?
|
| And if that is a substantial amount - how will the Lightning
| Network not drive Visa out of business?
| mjul wrote:
| You are probably thinking about the interchange fees.
|
| [1] https://www.visa.co.uk/about-visa/visa-in-europe/fees-and-
| in...
| dandare wrote:
| A) how much are the transaction fees in yhe first place?
|
| B) I remember being charged an extra buck when I choose a credit
| card as my payment method. Why couldn't retailers just do this?
| hmrr wrote:
| I wonder if this is why my bank (Santander) is switching everyone
| to Mastercard.
| omar_alt wrote:
| Having a Mastercard and an Amex can be useful if you are dealing
| with some payment gateways that throw a fit at visa during
| checkout (Scottish whisky sites on Stripe payment gateways is a
| recurring theme). However this is completely impractical for many
| people especially those on low incomes who now consider Amazon a
| utility.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Maybe the bank could offer a 2-in-1 card. Most Danish VISA
| cards can be used as both a VISA or a national payment card
| (which is without transaction fee by law). Most shops offer
| payment via both.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| The HN headline doesn't fit the article. UK issued Visa cards !=
| Amazon UK, and it says Amazon.com, not Amazon UK.
|
| For example Revolut is available in a lot of countries, they're
| UK-based, and I'm guessing the cards are UK-issued since a lot of
| merchants think it's a GBP card (and they conveniently ask if
| they should do the currency conversion (and conveniently don't
| tell you their conversion rate is much higher and profits them)).
| barrkel wrote:
| I updated it.
| bamboozled wrote:
| "Only Amazon is allowed to make way more money than anyone else"
| [deleted]
| 3guk wrote:
| Rather interestingly my bank (First Direct) in the UK swapped
| over from a Visa Debit card to a Mastercard recently - I wonder
| if perhaps there are things going on behind the scenes that
| consumers are not currently aware of.
|
| Rather annoyingly most of my spending with Amazon is on my Visa
| credit card - can't quite figure out why they are now more
| expensive to process than the historically expensive AMEX.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Same, but the credit card is still Visa. Not sure why they only
| switched the debit cards.
| buro9 wrote:
| Sooo.... if I have an Amazon account that is also an AWS account.
|
| I can pay with Visa on AWS, but not Amazon?
|
| And if I close the Amazon account, it will close the AWS account?
|
| I only really use AWS for S3, and if Cloudflare get R2 into my
| hands soon it does appear that Amazon will have finally done that
| which de-Amazons me... made it impossible to pay them. If the
| choice is "Change bank" or "Change shop"... one of these has far
| lower friction.
| mission_failed wrote:
| Amazon Australia started charging fees to pay via Visa starting
| this month. No fees for Amex or mastercard.
| refurb wrote:
| Not that it's a big market but Amazon Singapore had also added
| a fee to visa transactions starting last month.
|
| I assume Amazon tried to leverage the tens of billions in
| purchases (across regions) to get a better fee structure from
| Visa and Visa said "no".
|
| No different than Costco dropping their long-standing Amex
| agreement in favor of Visa in the US a fewer years back.
|
| "Kill the chickens to teach the monkeys" as they say in
| Singapore.
|
| Now other companies know Visa is willing to tell the likes of
| Amazon "no". Lesser companies won't even ask.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| One liner article and still paywalled.
|
| ---
|
| Some customers received a notification from Amazon this week
| after making purchases, which said that "starting 19 January
| 2022, we will no longer accept Visa credit cards issued in the
| UK" due to the high fees charged by Visa to process the
| transactions
| azalemeth wrote:
| I really don't get why we accept this de-facto tax on the world
| economy by US companies. Amex, Visa and Mastercard are all based
| in the US, and all charge a (nowadays) non-negotiable fee on
| selling anything. Cash has many problems, and clearly won't work
| for online purchases, but at least small business owners could
| pay their employees "out of the till" at the end of the week,
| bypassing bank transaction fees and a fairly substantial (~1%)
| barely-negotiable and highly regressive charge on their income.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| It's a problem of regulation. E.g. in my home country, the
| Netherlands, practically everyone uses a Maestro or V Pay card
| issued by Mastercard or Visa, but card fees are very
| reasonable: EUR 0.0082 + 0,010% (for domestic transactions).
| The bank charges a much higher fee, but total fees still come
| out to less EUR 0.05. That's much cheaper than handling cash
| is.
| toyg wrote:
| Bootstrapping a worldwide payment system is very, very
| expensive.
| azalemeth wrote:
| If anything, that's an argument in favour of the whole thing
| being government controlled -- it's clearly a natural
| monopoly with a large capital expenditure requirement and a
| comparatively minimal (as a percentage of transactions)
| ongoing charge required to continue to run it. I mean, it
| _clearly_ doesn 't cost Visa / MC any more to make a
| PS/$/EUR45 000 payment than a PS/$/EUR5 one - database writes
| are not cheaper or more expensive if the fixed point value
| you change is smaller or larger (subject to fitting within
| the range requirements, etc)...
| kasey_junk wrote:
| You are forgetting about risk management which does change
| based on the fixed point value.
| toyg wrote:
| _> If anything, that 's an argument in favour of the whole
| thing being government controlled_
|
| Absolutely, and I kinda expect this to become the case
| eventually across Europe, as the "cashless society" vision
| becomes inevitable. If you make it de-facto compulsory for
| citizens to operate electronically, it's only fair that
| there should be the sort of guarantees and accountability
| that only the State can provide, even if you lose a bit of
| innovation or efficiency.
| gtirloni wrote:
| Brazil has gone that route with PIX [0]. It's a fund
| transfer system with realtime confirmation. Many e-commerce
| stores accept it besides debit/credit, they can confirm the
| payment almost instantaneously and they usually give
| discounts if you use PIX instead of debit/credit (3-10%).
|
| Also, paying at stores, clinics, doctors, etc.. all done
| with PIX nowadays. Very few people are carrying cash these
| days. Very few clinics had a payment machine to accept
| debit/credit cards and now with PIX they have no incentive
| to do so anymore.
|
| To transfer funds, you can specify the user's ID (which can
| be a phone number, national tax identification or some
| random string the user creates). To pay for purchases, you
| usually scan a QR code or copy a payment string using your
| bank's app/website. It's very convenient.
|
| 0 - https://www.bcb.gov.br/en/financialstability/pix_en
| radiator wrote:
| Interesting. Is having a brazilian bank account a
| prerequisite to use PIX?
| IdoRA wrote:
| Cash is not free to handle. Considering the whole "cash
| lifecycle": shrinkage, cost of secure transport to the bank,
| &c., costs can be up to 8% for some industry sectors.
| baq wrote:
| > "Pablo was earning so much that each year we would write off
| 10% of the money because the rats would eat it in storage or it
| would be damaged by water or lost," Escobar wrote.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/pablo-escobar-and-rubber-ban...
| tryptophan wrote:
| I wonder what will happen when fedNow goes live.
|
| https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....
|
| It will be a cheap/free, instant, money sending service. What
| will be the point of visa/mastercard/paypal then?
| kall wrote:
| "We" don't. In the EU, the base fee is capped at 0.2% (debit)
| and 0.3% (credit) which sounds reasonable for what they
| provide.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Which doesn't apply in the UK post Brexit, hence this
| situation. The UK could cram down interchange fees (such that
| the EU had) with their own regulation if they don't want
| merchants banning rent seeking payment networks.
| tim333 wrote:
| Following Brexit they'll probably be able to jack it up by
| offering consulting roles to Tory politicians.
| ArgyleSound wrote:
| It still applies in the UK, just not between UK-EU
| transactions because those are cross border now
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The whole point of brexit was to get rid of the sort of
| fair, efficient, reasonable legislation the EU pushes.
| Brits want to be fucked over by big US mega corps and are
| tired of the EU refusing them that right. As a Brit I wish
| it wasn't true but here we are.
| alecco wrote:
| Doesn't translate to real life: "1.45% + EUR 0.05 per
| transaction"
|
| https://www.mypos.eu/en/pricing-and-fees
| kall wrote:
| Yeah sure, but that's all added on by other parties. As far
| as I know, the layers above VISA/MC are diverse enough (not
| a duopoly). If that's true you could rely on the market to
| drive down fees if it's profitable.
| scrollaway wrote:
| That would be the extra price set by that particular point
| of sale / middleware.
|
| Maybe look at Adyen instead.
| tumetab1 wrote:
| Because regulations which goverments supports because they
| prefer digital transactions to physical money for several
| reasons. (EU country perspective)
|
| By VISA/ MasterCard contract backed by governments' regulations
| a merchant in EU can not charge more because he's using a card
| instead of cash. Of course the transactions costs are paid by
| the customer, it's just all customers instead of those paying
| by card.
|
| That's why some cards have charges, to the merchants, of around
| 2%... because the customer who use that cards does not pay
| them.
|
| If I, as a customer, when doing an Amazon checkout saw a 2%
| charge to use VISA I would drop them in a second. Because
| that's hidden on purpose, I keep using it.
| tumetab1 wrote:
| To clarify, it seems that transactions costs vary a lot in
| the EU. I have the prices in Portugal for 2 terminal payments
| provider and I see lot of comissions around 2% which is
| strange because the EU states that the comissions are much
| lower.
|
| No idea what's going here.
| Dah00n wrote:
| Aren't you looking at the PoS fee instead of the VISA fee?
| viktorcode wrote:
| That's dependent on a world region. It is a question to
| regulations in this area your country employs.
|
| Also, there are different payment systems (non US). It is up to
| sellers to support them.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| Cash management is not free.
|
| Unless a business is extremely small, extremely low margin or
| doesn't want an electronic record of the transaction most
| businesses prefer not to deal with cash.
|
| So you are back to a payments network. Those are very hard to
| bootstrap and are not free to run.
| jbb67 wrote:
| I have a visa credit card and received this email. I don't want
| to use my debit card with amazon particularly.
|
| You get a few added protections by purchasing with a credit card,
| and a mistake can't drain my current account in the same way as
| it could with a debit card, plus I get the benefits of a month or
| two credit for "free".
|
| If I'm "forced" to use my debit card, I'll have to for essential
| purchases but this means that I likely won't be buying much more
| from amazon in the immediate future where I can find an
| alternative.
| machiaweliczny wrote:
| > a mistake can't drain my current account in the same way as
| it could with a debit card
|
| In Poland credit cards aren't popular at all and you just have
| separate account for monthly expenses with card attached to
| this account. For me it works fine. Don't understand the need
| for credit cards (I guess it makes sense for people living
| paycheck-to-paycheck).
| Jansen312 wrote:
| For everything else there is master card.
| qalmakka wrote:
| VAT evasion is widespread in certain countries (like Italy for
| instance), and pushing people to prefer electronic payments to
| cash is empirically the only realistic way to counter it, but
| there will always be resistance from small retailers until
| payment fees are low enough. The availability of electronic
| payments should be universal, I personally hate being forced to
| constantly carry cash on myself at all times.
|
| In a cashless society, there's no point in mugging and robbing,
| because people don't have untraceable items of value on the at
| all times.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| On the other hand, shifting to electronic payments is building
| up an _incredible_ surveillance mechanism.
|
| Let's just take an example of who is endangered... a 16 year
| old girl from a strictly religious family who had unprotected
| sex and needs Plan B. In a cash environment, she'll pay for it
| with her allowance, and her parents won't ever discover she had
| bought Plan B. In a cashless society, her parents can see the
| evidence by checking her bank account.
|
| Also, un(der)documented / "illegalized" people literally won't
| have a way to survive, as their access to bank accounts may be
| revoked or the government demand a live feed of all
| transactions, which means that e.g. the police can be
| dispatched to a supermarket where that person just bought food.
|
| IT (and politics) _definitely_ needs ethics education, as all
| the tech bros and other hypers of "going cashless" never take
| into account who will be negatively affected by their ideas!
| cesarb wrote:
| > In a cash environment, she'll pay for it with her
| allowance, and her parents won't ever discover she had bought
| Plan B. In a cashless society, her parents can see the
| evidence by checking her bank account.
|
| Playing devil's advocate: that's only if the payment and the
| product are linked. When I buy something at a pharmacy with a
| credit or debit card, all that appears on the card together
| with the value is the name of the pharmacy. Looking at the
| bank account does not reveal whether the item I bought was
| toothpaste or chocolate (yes pharmacies also sell chocolate
| here).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Sure, but it exposes the person to a risk nevertheless,
| especially if they did not think of a suitable excuse that
| rhymes up with parents going on a deep dive (which _many_
| abusive parents or spouses do... just read r /2X, JustNoX,
| AITA and the likes).
|
| A lack of cash allowance can easily be explained by buying
| some soda or fast food, but a paper trail is harder to
| consistently explain away.
| thow-58d4e8b wrote:
| Lost VAT revenue is not due to mom-and-pop shops offering a
| discount under the table. The vast majority of lost VAT revenue
| is due to organized VAT carousel frauds, also knows as missing
| trader fraud, where an organized groups of 10-20 people siphons
| tens of millions into their pockets through reimbursements of
| fictitious trades. It's one of the most lucrative fraud schemes
| there is, but if caught and convicted, the sentences are
| usually comparable to that of murderers. If not caught, the
| accomplices frequently try to assassinate each other in a sort
| of a sick tournament-style elimination
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_trader_fraud
| locallost wrote:
| I don't understand how this works. If I see correctly, one
| entity in the chain simply does not pay the VAT it collected.
| Why is it important that it's cross border? I could issue an
| invoice to my neighbour's company myself and simply not
| report it. You can always do that and hope you don't get an
| audit.
| [deleted]
| jCalamari wrote:
| > VAT evasion is widespread in certain countries (like Italy
| for instance), and pushing people to prefer electronic payments
| to cash is empirically the only realistic way to counter it
|
| The only realist way to counter it is to stop charging VAT.
|
| > In a cashless society, there's no point in mugging and
| robbing, because people don't have untraceable items of value
| on the at all times.
|
| Because all the valuable items are digital and hackers can
| steal your money without meeting you in person.
| verisimi wrote:
| Like many here, I'm wondering where this will go. It could be a
| negotiation strategy with Visa or something like that.
|
| I can't help but wonder whether this is intended to fit into some
| sort of crypto currency (or govcoin) roll out.
| mrkramer wrote:
| "We are very disappointed that Amazon is threatening to restrict
| consumer choice in the future. When consumer choice is limited,
| nobody wins," a Visa spokesman said in an email.
|
| "When consumer choice is limited". Yea that's the problem, more
| competition is needed.
| tim333 wrote:
| As a consumer I'd prefer openness as to what the cards charge
| an ability to get a bit off if you use a cheaper one.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Amazingly one mention of cryptocurrency on the whole page o
| comments.
|
| Cryptocurrency will put Visa out of business. Both for debit and
| credit.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Given that Amazon offers its own Visa card in the USA, I wonder
| how this sort of behavior affects their relationship with Visa
| Inc. ?
| chinathrow wrote:
| I'd love to see a drill down of how exact the credit card scheme
| works regarding fees.
|
| Like who is paid what exactly by whom. Is this somewhere
| available?
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Visa would lose face if they charged the end user with
| transaction fees, so the merchant pays it instead. Then the
| merchant delegates the transaction fee to the user, but
| thankfully nobody knows about that.
| chinathrow wrote:
| I think you left out a few steps who's getting their fat cut
| (issuer of the card, aquirer, merchang provider etc) but not
| sure how it exactly goes down.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| I suppose consumer to merchant payments are optimized and
| men in the middle can't get much, everything goes to Visa.
| Card to card transactions are less optimized and issuer
| might get a cut.
| mrep wrote:
| patio11 has articles on it. I would recommend the "How credit
| cards make money" one:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=kalzumeus.com
| InsomniacL wrote:
| Visa
|
| Revenue: US$21 billion (2020)
|
| Net income: US$10 billion (2020)
|
| Amazon
|
| Revenue: $425 billion (2020)
|
| Net income: US$21 billion (2020)
|
| It would seem the duopoly between Visa and Mastercard is very
| profitable, yet their fee's are constantly rising.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)
| 5754797 wrote:
| So Amazon should just buy visa and be done with it.
| missedthecue wrote:
| Visa is a $457B company
| ashergill wrote:
| https://archive.md/n2PU8
| aembleton wrote:
| or https://www.bbc.com/news/business-59306200
| buro9 wrote:
| https://www.amazon.jobs/en-gb/principles
|
| Right there at the top...
|
| Customer Obsession
|
| Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work
| vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay
| attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
|
| Nothing about this is customer obsession. This is Amazon throwing
| their weight around and putting customers in the firing line.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| Here are the relevant interchange fees for consumer credit cards
| (for card-not-present transactions):
|
| - [0] Both customer and merchant in EEA: 0.3%
|
| - [1] Customer in UK, merchant in EEA: 1.5%
|
| - [2] Customer in UK, merchant in UK: 0.3%
|
| What's weird, though, is that the interchange for UK-issued debit
| cards used at an EEA merchant is also high (1.15%).
|
| [0]
| https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...
|
| [1]
| https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...
|
| [2]
| https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...
| londons_explore wrote:
| Amazon sells Amazon branded Mastercards in the UK... Could be
| part of it...
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Has this been confirmed by Amazon? I received this notice and
| another one last week about my payment method expiring for one
| Amazon service but not any of the others on the same card. I
| couldn't confirm that one either and it had the distinct whiff of
| phish about it.
| 3guk wrote:
| Yep, I had a direct email from Amazon this morning advising me
| that I could no longer use my Visa Credit card for orders.
|
| "Starting 19 January, 2022, we will unfortunately no longer
| accept Visa credit cards issued in the UK, due to the high fees
| Visa charges for processing credit card transactions. You can
| still use debit cards (including Visa debit cards) and non-Visa
| credit cards like Mastercard, Amex, and Eurocard to make
| purchases. Please update your default payment method now, or
| add one of these new, eligible payment methods if you do not
| have one."
| fredoralive wrote:
| I've recieved an email from Amazon.co.uk about it as well.
| Although I can only go by the subject "Visa credit cards will
| not be accepted, starting 19 Jan, 2022". My email preferences
| on Amazon are set to text only, and the text only email has no
| useful content beyond my name and generic headers / footers.
| amelius wrote:
| When did you receive it?
| fredoralive wrote:
| 09:15 GMT. Unlike what the report says, I haven't ordered
| anything from Amazon in the past week or so I don't think
| it's directly tied to a super recent purchase (although I
| probably used a Visa Credit card for whatever it was).
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