Comment by sandeepkd
20 hours ago
One of the reasons why the fee is being considered is under the pressure of other payment providers who are loosing to UPI in Indian market. Its been believed to be one of the negotiation points by the US-India trade deals
I won't be surprised. In Australia, no public transport system accepts the national payment system (EFTPOS) and instead it is either a public transport specific card or one of the 3 American rails. In NSW, there was promise of a second phase to support EFTPOS but that is hasn't happened yet.
The American Empire is alive and well.
From the Wikipedia article it sounds like these typically require PIN entry which is something that would make them less suitable to public transport applications. Normal credit cards and mobile wallets all have modes of operation that directly target the public transit use case and if EFTPOS does not then it may be excluded on that basis without imperialistic US interference.
In NSW you can tap your Opal reader with your card.
A card that is using Mastercard, Visa, or American Express; no EFTPOS support.
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Cards are so backward in 2026. To carry them should by itself make one shudder.
Putting your card in, say, Apple Pay is equivalent. How do you think Apple Pay works? It’s tap-to-pay, equivalent to your credit card. That’s why you can use Apple Pay wherever you use tap-to-pay on your card. That’s why Apple Pay doesn’t work at Walmart and merchants need to do no work to support Apple Pay.
In the US you really have no options. It’s card, or card, or maybe even card. There’s Zelle, which is irreversible. PayPal and friends, which charge a fee, so no. And crypto, which is used for drugs.
In 2026 "backward" is a dysphemism for "reliable".
Not sure what's making you shudder about carrying a payment instrument that doesn't need its batteries charged, doesn't need to run firmware or an OS, doesn't need a network connection independent of the payment terminal, and isn't simultaneously a surveillance device, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Of course, anyone not giving either Google, Apple or Samsung direct access to their finances is soooo backwards.
What a fall from grace for the progenitor of Non-Aligned Movement to be bowing down to USA and hurting its own people. The Nation has been betrayed by the State.
I agree with the sentiment - however, even after independence, India has been ruled by the same Anglophone/phile elite with nearly the same set of laws/policies/ interests. Even the Indian constitution comes in large part from the 1935 GoI Act passed in the British Parliament.
(Anglo-)India is of the Anglophones, by the Anglophones and for the Anglophones for all practical purposes.
That's why laws etc. are mandated to be written in this foreign language that's incomprehensible to the majority, and why there's a strict near-apartheid like barrier preventing higher education (and with it, higher employment) to non-Anglophones.
The only reason I imagine we don't hear about this systematic discrimination that prevent downstream material development like industrialization (as opposed to the ethereal one like caste) is perhaps because Western institutions have vested geopolitical interest in having such a large vassal, intellectually if not politically.
> mandated to be written in this foreign language that'
I am sure people from the Northern belt would be happy if the laws were written in Tamil (my mother tongue).
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It’s written in English because it’s the language spoken by the educated.
My wife is from south India, and I’m a frequent visitor to India.
It’s evident that Hindi nationalism is to the benefit of the north, while southern culture is slowly being replaced.
Hong Kong also uses English.
I assume it does have advantages. The common law of the ex British colonies are all broadly compatible, so there's the possibility of having judges from other countries decide cases. Trade and maritime law is/ was basically British law. I would guess it also helps foreign investment if the law is in a language those investors understand.
Yes, these were probably better reasons in the past though.
Melodramatic much? It's a trade deal (if the parent is to be believed). Both sides are getting something out of it. Presumably, India needs access to the US market more than the other way round.
> Both sides are getting something out of it
Indian kings made deals with the East India Company. What did the people got out of it? Destitution?
So no, I am not being melodramatic. India has a history of the State betraying the Nation. Sadly, this is but the latest chapter in a very old saga.
Well, NAM would only be successful with two power centers. One of the power centers disappeared which precipitated this state. It has nothing to do with the state as such.
India has gotten more powerful since the Cold War. If Iran can stand up to USA, then surely India can too; but only if the State has not sold its soul and its Nation.
Respect to China who foresaw this and built a massive economy without using anything of US.
Same reason the US is going after Pix in Brazil. The world is decoupling from the US and the US is going to try to flex against it as it continues. Dollar dominance and the “exorbitant privilege” continue to erode (with the acceleration self inflicted). Also shrinks the TAM of these private US firms to only the US versus the world.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48415854
Something like Pix is a great blueprint for the future imo.
I don’t want international private companies controlling payments, better have my own elected government manage it.
> I don’t want international private companies controlling payments, better have my own elected government manage it.
The ideal of course is decentralized payment systems with no middlemen, but if there are going to be middlemen, a competitive marketplace of middlemen driven primary by predictable financial incentives is vastly less scary than monopolization by power-centralizing political institutions.
I don't want corporations controlling payments, but I don't want my government controlling payments either.
What I actually wanted was for the cryptocurrency dream to become reality, but it turned into stocks instead.
It goes both ways: What if the ONLY payment method was the one approved by your "elected" government. A balance where they can all exist is the best, and most difficult decision.
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I encourage you to loudly champion such a model in your nation state to whomever is in power and will listen.
The interesting thing is that Visa's payment rails are cheaper than Pix. Pix charges businesses 0.22% to 0.33% while the Visa network rate is only 0.10% to 0.15% per transaction.
The main thing that makes card transactions more expensive is the merchant bank assuming chargeback risk, but that's because card payments are an entirely different transaction type. Pix is digital cash. You typically cannot get refunded for any reason. Cards are not digital cash. You can get refunded for fraud and unauthorized transactions.
Visa debit, maybe, but they're way higher for Visa credit.
> The interesting thing is that Visa's payment rails are cheaper than Pix. Pix charges businesses 0.22% to 0.33% while the Visa network rate is only 0.10% to 0.15% per transaction.
This is not factually accurate. Pix also has fraud controls built into the platform, and does fine doing far more volume than credit card rails in Brazil. It is an objective success, having avoided US financial service firms from skimming hundreds of basis points of total economic activity out of the Brazilian economy.
Brazil's Pix payment system faces pressure from Visa and Mastercard - https://www.reuters.com/article/business/brazils-pix-much-ch... - March 23rd, 2022 ("Brazil’s Pix retail instant payment system is “much cheaper” than card payments for merchants, according to a paper published Wednesday by the umbrella body of the world’s central banks, highlighting its growth potential for businesses after its vertiginous rise among individuals. The paper, which was co-authored by economists at the Brazilian central bank for the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), says Pix costs an average of 0.22% of a transaction’s value for merchants, whereas debit cards cost slightly above 1% and credit cards reach 2.2% in Brazil.")
Payment technology complementarities and their consequences on the banking sector: evidence from Brazil’s Pix - https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap152_c.pdf - December 2024
> In this paper, we employ an instrument and individual-level banking data in Brazil to examine the effects of a novel payment technology, Pix, on the use of other payment technologies and its impact on the banking sector. We find evidence that Pix increases use of the four most common payment technologies in Brazil among individuals and firms. Furthermore, our empirical evidence suggests that Pix contributes to an increase in the number of bank accounts, their use and access to credit, benefiting different types of banks. The findings indicate that the implementation of new payment technologies yields advantages not only for firms and individuals but also for the broader banking and payment industry.
If the US had any foresight it could stave this off by making its own global payments system be the one with the lowest fees, and thereby keep people using US currency and US institutions.
Whereas if you give other countries the obvious win that they can stop paying ~3% of their entire economy to a foreign payments network then you lose the fees anyway and that other stuff on top of it.
> Whereas if you give other countries the obvious win that they can stop paying ~3% of their entire economy to a foreign payments network
To be fair:
- 3% is on the higher end of the fees amounts. In the EU they are now capped at 0.3% for example
- part of the interchange fee goes to the issuing bank, which is usually local
> If the US had any foresight it could stave this off by making its own global payments system be the one with the lowest fees,
What global payments system? We have the worst payment systems in the developed world.
The US money transfer situation is so bad that all the major banks got tired of The Fed's incompetence...and simply bypassed The Fed. That's how we ended up with Zelle, which actually does instantaneous (or at least within minutes) transfers.
In 2026 it is virtually impossible to quickly move money from one account to another because every single bit of it has to pass through the US Federal Reserve's ancient systems. We're the laughing stock of the rest of the world's banking systems. Thirty years ago europeans could walk into a store, do a fund transfer to pay for something, and walk out. We still can't do that.
Literally the only way to buy something expensive in a store in the US is via credit card.
You can't use a debit card because of transaction limits and lack of consumer protections.
You can't use any of the "app" payment methods.
You can't do wire transfers.
You can't do checks because the US check clearing system is so bad, a check can initially clear (after a day or five), and then weeks later, bounce.
You can't do cash because it's now legal for cops to consider having an unusual amount of cash to be enough for reasonable suspicion and they've done some gymnastics that allow them to seize the cash and keep it even if the person is not charged or charges are dismissed.
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It’s not just about cost, it’s about control and sovereignty. Other countries do not want to have their payment systems rug pulled at the whim of whomever US voters decide to put into office each election cycle. The cost to build your own is reasonable compared to what losing the capability costs.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Europe Fights to Loosen America’s Grip on Payment Systems - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48636931 - June 2026
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Brazil faces similar pressures from credit card companies via Trump. We're cutting them out of their precious profits and they don't like that.
Any such issues on health care side? Here in India, at least in my state (Kerala), American Private Equity giants such as BlackStone and KKR are acquiring major hospital chains. I am worried they will ruin our healthcare just like what happened in USA. Healthcare was one thing India had better than USA (at least in availability and cost, availability as in being able to see a doctor same day or getting an MRI in a few hours). Now, that will disappear.
https://indhospitalsolution.com/blogs/keralas-hospital-gold-...
> The research from the United States — which is a decade further down this road — is sobering. Studies of PE-acquired hospitals document consistent patterns: non-revenue-generating services reduced, staff-to-patient ratios cut, ancillary charges inflated, and a systematic shift toward high-margin procedures.
https://jeswinjos.medium.com/someone-is-quietly-buying-keral...
I haven't observed it happening in the context of hospitals, but it absolutely is happening to medical education. Brazilian conglomerate Afya was born as a literal PE firm and by now has rolled up many if not most of the private medical schools. It's controlled by some german education conglomerate though.
Their SEC filing mentions they engage in "deregulation advocacy" which is no doubt a hilarious euphemism for lobbying the brazilian government so it relaxes quality standards for medical schools. No doubt they're responsible for much of the enshittification here.
> US-India trade deals
There it is! Behind every revealed shittery and fuckery, there's one name that constantly come up. As for this example, I'll give you a clue: it's not India.
> One of the reasons why the fee is being considered is under the pressure of other payment providers who are loosing to UPI in Indian market.
Correlation is not causation. Banks have demanded this (getting rid of Zero MDR) for many years, even prior to Trump assuming office. However, it may have momemtum now due to the impending trade deal. But that's speculation either way, and the burden of proof rests with whoever is making that assertion.
What the government conceded (or gained, which could be a boring topic relatively) would make an impactful story. Unfortunately, newpapers today mostly rely on correlation rather than doing the hard work of finding someone who'll spill the beans. There's very little of Tehelka-style "Operation West End" (or "All the President's Men" for a movie equivalent) going on these days.
* association I mean, not correlation.
I assumed you were joking about this, but wow, the US indeed did demand this from both India and Brazil. Brazil rejected while India knelt and surrendered. US also demanded that India not enforce any market cap limit for UPI payment providers to prevent monopolies - and India surrendered there as well.
Unfortunately, current Modi govt is compromised due to Adani and the Epstein files. It can only hop and jump to whatever Trump orders.
these mfs have no shame do they?