Comment by greenavocado

2 months ago

This is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is what is preventing other payment processors from seamlessly getting in front of the customer, at every retail location, and online? If other payment processors existed and were allowed to flourish, we would not give a damn if these two blocked 90% of transaction types. Instead, something is suffocating innovation and personal freedom.

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greenavocado

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skissane  2 months ago

> This is the wrong question to ask. The right question to ask is what is preventing other payment processors from seamlessly getting in front of the customer, at every retail location, and online?

Here in Australia, most places accept UnionPay as well as Visa/Mastercard - but I don’t know if any local banks offer UnionPay cards, [0] I think this facility is really targeted at visitors from mainland China. And if a cafe takes UnionPay, that’s just because the cafe’s bank accepts it, and why would the cafe refuse if the bank allows it? A lot of places refuse to take Amex even though their bank does due to its high fees, but I don’t believe UnionPay has that issue. A lot of places take JCB, although that’s not as widely accepted as UnionPay is-in Australia, JCB is handled by Amex, so a lot of merchants will refuse JCB (even if their bank accepts it) due to the same concern about fees. Diners Club used to be accepted in Australia too, until they pulled out of the Australian market last year (I think overseas Diners Club cards are still accepted by some places as Discover, but few in Australia have ever heard of Discover)

I used to have an Amex credit card issued by my bank, and I used to use it all the time-they’d kick back some of the extra merchant fee they got as extra frequent flyer points/miles - but Australian banks stopped issuing Amex when a regulatory change in 2017 significantly reduced how much money the issuing bank could make from them

I don’t believe the situation for online retailers is hugely different-if your bank supports UnionPay/Amex/JCB for in-person transactions, they likely do for online transactions too

[0] Bank of China’s Australian subsidiary apparently does issue UnionPay cards to Australian residents, but I doubt they’d get many customers except for immigrants from China-most Australians would never even consider applying, and they’ve made no attempt to market it to the average person

LaGrange  2 months ago

It's the very same payment processors stifling that "innovation," though. You can't invisible hand yourself out of this one.