Let's stop playing around and talk about ditching something big: Visa and Mastercard - Lemmy.ca
lemmy.ca
Visa and Mastercard are American companies, and they essentially tax everybody by taking a percentage of purchase prices for themselves. Not exactly a small percentage either, 1.2% to 2.65% [https://money.ca/credit-cards/how-much-are-canadian-merchants-really-charged-by-visa-mc]. Ever wonder why so many merchants say they don’t accept American Express? That’s because they charge quite a bit more to merchantes, 50% more than Visa or Mastercard. Anyway, we’re letting American companies tax us and we love them because we get rewards when we use cards. But it’s just a shell game because we pay more up front because businesses need to charge more to make up for payment processing charges. They get to sit in the middle and rake in the money. Now the alternative in Canada is Interac. Interac charges a set amount per transcation. How much? 2 to 5.5 cents [https://www.interac.ca/en/payments/business/understanding-fees/]. Unless you’re going through Apple or Google Pay, and then it’s a percentage again. Interac is also Canadian. Want to stick it to Trump? Stop using credit cards (and Google Pay or Apple Pay) and switch to Interac. Want to make Canada better? Stop using credit cards and switch to Interac. Is it going to be inconvenient? Yes. Online shopping will be much harder but I have seen online Interac payments before and we can ask our favourite Canadian merchants to accept Interac online.
  • tobifant@friendica.tf-translate.net
    1·
    28 days ago

    @orize The European alternative would be SEPA instant transfer, Klarna, or the German “EC card” system (which I heard have started becoming available for online use, though not those of my bank). But thank you for briging this to my attention. I think I will cancel my American Express card immediately. I won’t miss that one. As to going credit card free, that will be a bit harder.

  • Foreigner@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    If you’re in France there’s the Carte Bancaire.

    Edit: I’ve just looked into Revolut and they’re UK based with operations throughout Europe, so they might be an alternative for online payments across borders.

  • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    Just out of curiosity, what purchase taxes are you talking about ? Aside from the yearly fee and the occasional (quite steep though) tax when I withdraw money too many times from non-VISA ATMs I don’t think I have many extra fees with mine.

    • jafffacakelemmy@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Maybe you dont have too many extra fees, but when you use your visa card or MasterCard to buy from a merchant, 3% of the purchase price is paid by the merchant to visa/MasterCard. In the long run that puts prices up because the vendor is passing on those costs to you, the buyer. Its a tricky issue because if you pay cash, the shop has to store, transport securely, and pay to deposit the cash into a business bank account. That might cost around 3% of their takings too. The feeling here is that if you buy 100 pounds worth of shopping, it doesn’t cost visa/MasterCard anything like 3 pounds to process that payment, more like a few pence. So perhaps we are being taken advantage of?

      • Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        I see, that makes sense. Y’all might be talking me into switching to Revolut. Though I’ve gotta say that Visa’s insurance saved my ass this very weekend by handling everything to bring me and my gf home after a visit to the ER that left us stranded 800 km from home (even though we are both on the cheapest visa cards available in our country), so I’ll have to see if they have similar stuff