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Comment by radialstub

5 hours ago

This is the government's problem. I tend to be on the side of less government, but it is so obvious that payment facilitation should be a service provided by the government. The government is just allowing corporations to collect rents, because they are lazy and incompetent.

12 comments

radialstub

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bnjms  4 hours ago

They’re more like taxes than rents. It’s a constant cost applied to all goods because of the ubiquity of use means we pay with or without playing the credit card/payments game.

AnthonyMouse  3 hours ago

This is fundamentally looking at it the wrong way.

Why do we need my bank to send money to your bank via Visa or the Federal Reserve or any such thing, instead of having my bank send money directly to your bank? All they need to do is both support the same openly specified protocol for transferring money.

guywithahat  5 hours ago

It's not a government problem, it's a competition problem. Fundamentally 1-3% is actually a very competitive rate for organizing the easy transfer of money and handling fraud. Merchants would rather the cost be free, and banks may want a larger slice of the pie, but until someone comes up with a better way of paying money for both sides this is the best we have. If government got involved all that could happen is fees would increase and then we'd miss out on future efficiency improvements and savings.

  • stevesimmons  4 hours ago

    > Fundamentally 1-3% is actually a very competitive rate for organizing the easy transfer of money and handling fraud

    This is a very US-centric take. In the UK, EU and Australia, interchange rates are capped at more like 0.2/0.3%.

    • gruez  3 hours ago

      That actually proves the point, because a market left to itself arrives at 2-3%, and it only goes lower if the government is dictating a rate.

      2 replies →

  • MBCook  4 hours ago

    0% because it’s a service that’s so obviously should be provided by the government is better.