Visa and Mastercard near deal with merchants that would change rewards landscape

> Under terms being discussed, Visa and Mastercard would lower credit-card interchange fees, which are often between 2% and 2.5%, by an average of around a tenth of a percentage point over several years, the people said

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/...

"Deal under discussion would lower credit-card interchange fees for merchants, but could make it harder for consumers to use rewards cards at the register"

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.

Man, looking forward to the paying experience also being enshittified.

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.

Syndicated at MSN.

Archive sites returned a gripe about js and adblockers.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/visa-and-mastercar...