Actually with my card in Europe it's already happened: any payment purpotedly being done overseas (even if it's in the local currency) has some % surcharge. One time some pop-up store came to my town, and they brought a card machine from their store in France. Charged in my local currency, and my bank charged me more. Luckily I could call them with much annoyance and get it credited back.
From online chatter I've heard that paying for Netflix or some other foreign service induces this charge too.
Yeah I know Revolut... I've also seen stories of them basically freezing people's accounts. I have it but I only top it up when I need it.
Meanwhile interchange fees in places like EU and Australia are more like 0.3%
The Visa/Mastercard duopoly really needs to be broken up somehow.
I live in Asia where there is a cambrian explosion of QR-code based payment methods. At many shops you'll see a list of accepted payment methods like this[0], indicating a healthy amount of competition in payments.
[0] https://corporate.fithouse.co.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/...
Proliferation of hundred of QR Code based payments system is not a good thing, you need one that works across all countries.
Outside Visa and Mastercard, we have Amex, Diner, JCB, even China has UnionPay, but unfortunately they are not as popular as a contender of the duopoly.
Physical card issuance is too high-friction for new entrants. It's much easier to attract new users with "just install our app" than "enter your home address and wait days for a card to arrive then put it in your wallet and remember to use it"
A few seconds later the money can have arrived (depending on system): in Europe today with normal banks and their online banking apps: the QR-on-POS-screen concept using the standard SEPA instant push transaction encoding, to prompt a <10 seconds confirmed-or-aborted "Echtzeit-Überweisung" (German phrase; the standard works across some borders already though) that's polled by the recipient (to release the customer out of the store), with the obvious fallback of "guess you have to pay a different way".
If for example the self-checkout terminal would just print a bill that then has to be paid by scanning a code on the bill or bringing it to a manned till or such, before the gate releases you from the area just behind the self-checkout kiosks (in response to you scanning the bill at the gate), this could absorb the online banking app friction/delays and offer a fallback of presenting the bill and a backup credit card at one of those kiosks as soon as one frees up in addition to the mentioned human-till cash payment or whatever else they do if your card suddenly misbehaves.
There have been reports of people printing their own QR codes and sticking them over the QR codes for businesses.
https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/can-i-trust-this-qr-code-c....
Agree on some security risks. But the cost of creating, printing or sharing a QR code is very low compared to NFC hardware cost and availability. I don’t know what you mean by slow, because it takes about 10 seconds to complete a transaction. QR codes are quite common in cities and towns in India because of this reason (and the other is that Apple, though a tiny player in the market, hasn’t opened up NFC completely for others to use). You can pay another person or a merchant by scanning a QR code on a cheap Android phone. You can pay for a metro or bus ticket by scanning a QR code. You’d likely see restaurants having a QR code for menus instead of paper menus, and many more.
(just as an example: https://www.hilton.com/en/book/reservation/rooms/?ctyhocn=SY...)
"Hotel Message
Credit Card Fee
Credit Card payments relating to Australian hotels incur a merchant service fee of 2% in addition to the total amount payable."
They're doing this because they can get away with it. Purely and simple. Large part of this 2% is extra profit.
Those places don't have the ruthless competition between card issuers and various rewards that occurs in the US. I was paid $1000 by Chase for opening a new card and doing the spend on it that I would have done anyway. I get 5% back on every purchase made at Amazon. I get 3% back for every food-related purchase. I get 2% back for every other purchase. I get rewards for my monthly rent payment. Etc., etc.
>I live in Asia where there is a cambrian explosion of QR-code based payment methods.
No American, used to having his Visa or Mastercard accepted at 99% and Amex accepted at 97% of places, would want to switch to constantly having to scan gigantic charts such as your example to see whether his card/payment method will work.
In other words, the US has the competition you spoke of, without the inconvenience.
Other banks are starting to finally adapt to other countries and give interests on the liquidity you have in your account
This line of thinking also ignores an important aspect of credit cards that benefit the merchant. 2-2.5% is not that much when it means you can sell to people without worrying about if they can pay for it. When that customer ultimately doesn't pay their CC bill(look at how high CC debt is), the issuing bank still needs to pay the merchant.
Is that not how these other payment providers work? Would they let a transaction through that won’t be settled afterward?
Surprise! The consumer loses again! It's always somehow benefiting everyone but the consumer. Too much control, not enough regulation. People shouldn't be bilked out of funds by paying to use their own money. We are shouldn't be _forced_ to use these service companies for making payments.
No, because in Europe sales tax is higher and included in the displayed price, so stuff is generally more expensive. But obviously everything is 3% cheaper than it would be if businesses still had to pay 3% fees. (credit card fees used to be really high before EU regulation came in -- the minimum fee was so high that merchants sometimes paid more in fees than they made in profit when a customer swiped a credit card instead of a debit card).
But the much bigger advantage is that reward cards aren't a thing, and credit card usage is much less common. Most people just use their debit cards. Credit card debt is much less of a problem because credit cards aren't advertised like they are in the US. People spend less if they don't always have $3000 of credit available.
We’d all be better off without credit card rewards and paying 2-3% less for everything but it is what it is.
But hey, I forgot HN is overindexed on overinflated big tech salaries while field tech workers get shafted on the low side.
The US payment networks are also incredibly robust with some fantastical operational guarantees. I cannot recall the last time I couldn't get an online authorization at a merchant terminal. There are rooms of people monitoring these things like a hawk 24/7/365. Imagine being called by your ISP proactively when they detect >.01% packet loss on your line. That was my job for an entire year. Calling banks on the phone in the middle of the night because we think there might be an issue before there actually is an issue. Statistically speaking, this is one of the most certain things in the life of a typical American. Visa alone processes a quarter trillion (10^12) transactions per year. We've got a lot of samples that say the system works really well and might be worth the cost.
You can point to regulation and artificial moats for prohibiting competition, but it's genuinely a difficult problem to solve, even if you can do it purely digital. Trust is the most challenging element. I think moving cash, checks and other paper around is easier in a lot of ways.
Personally I think it's fantastic they are losing ground because it really rubs me the wrong way when they force their morals [1] [2].
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632797/onlyfans-prohibi...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/mastercard-vis...
A 3% credit card surcharge is enough to make me switch my insurance/mobile network/home internet/utility/property tax transactions to ACH to avoid losing money on a credit card transaction that I am never going to need to chargeback.
Apologies for the tangent, but variable rates are good. For everyone. For the grid. For the environment. I wish we could stop framing it as consumer extortion and start looking into educational solutions.
$9/kWh was bad but it literally could not get worse due to the market rules. I don't know anyone who was using Griddy who was not aware of this possibility. I had to pay ~$1200 that month for usage and I still came out way ahead of anyone who was using fixed rate plans for the year. This last part is probably the actual reason they made variable rate electricity plans illegal for consumers in Texas.
Lots of countries are fine with charge card, connecting directly to their bank account instead of going thru intermediaries. It does not offer the flexibility of the US credit card ecosystem, but lower fees for merchants (and so for end user). It might be a matter of culture and habits. But for some the Visa/MC/Amex fees seem too high, even if most is given back to the end user, it artificially increases the prices (that is why the US Gov. charges me more if I insist on paying my US property taxes with as credit card).
E-commerce or coffee spot denying them? I’ll shop around for another!
k310•3mo ago
Archive sites returned a gripe about js and adblockers.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/visa-and-mastercar...