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Canada needs its own credit card payment method. (piefed.ca)

submitted 2 weeks ago by cyborganism@piefed.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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The US have a monopoly on credit card payments with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club, etc.

Even with online payment systems like PayPal, GPay, Apple Pay.

The only Canadian option that I know of is the new Shop Pay, which is owned by Shopify. (And we all know the founder CEO, Tobias Lutke is a far-right fascist traitor who loves the idea of being a 51st state.)

Right now Visa and Mastercard are controlling what stores can sell, and what services can be provided. Censoring online content, like asking Steam and Itch.io to remove certain games.

What are examples of alternatives in other countries? I know that Japan, for example, has their own independent ones, I think?

Do you think they might be refused by American companies in order to keep their monopoly?

I'd like to know what you think.

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[-] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 79 points 2 weeks ago

We have one. We don't use it for credit cards but we could if we wanted to. We use it for debit transactions.

[-] MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca 34 points 2 weeks ago

And it is orders of magnitude cheaper for retailers than credit cards.

[-] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 weeks ago

The problem is there's no incentive to use it, as you don't get the kickback your credit card provides. I'm not sure how the CC duopoly tricked us into disallowing retailer cash/debit discounting.

[-] nul42@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 weeks ago

I use debit whenever I can. The incentive is to not hand over 2 to 3 percent of my economy to foreigners who contribute nothing.

[-] SamuelRJankis@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 weeks ago

The discounting part isn't really true as of 2022.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/credit-card-surcharge-faq-1.6610356

The only significant revenue streams for most credit card issuers is Interchange fees, Annual fees and Interest. As only a lower flat network fee exist for Interact, merchants are the only ones that would logically offer anything for customers using them. But the difference really doesn't seem to be worth them bothering giving people 2-3 tier level pricing.

To put it into numbers at $100 transaction it's like 6 cents for a interact and $1.5-2 fee for a credit card.

[-] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

Appreciate the clarification. Guess I missed the memo when they changed that a few years back!

[-] YesButActuallyMaybe@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago

The incentive is to exchange money for goods without having to carry cash around. Like yeah you get points and shit for cc transactions but if you can’t see that the customer is not the one who benefits and it is merely a tool to drive engagement then I can’t help you.

[-] Enkers@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I mean, for me it literally makes all my purchases 1% cheaper for zero cost so long as I pay the full amount monthly, which I do. It'd make no financial sense to not take advantage of it.

This IMO is part of the problem, because I'm incentivized to take money away from local businesses and give it to the CC duopoly.

[-] MacroCyclo@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, some kind of legislation here would be nice. At least the credit card companies aren't as entrenched as in the states.

[-] Jhex@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

it's not the kickback, it's giving access to my bank account that I'm trying to avoid by using a credit card as a middle man

[-] Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, having someone bigger on your side when a purchase goes sideways is a big perk.

[-] sugarfoot00@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Simple. Part of the merchant agreement with someone like MC or Visa is that you'll pay them 3%, but not tack it on as a visible fee for the purchaser, or offer discounts for non CC transactions. So a merchant could do so, but they run the risk of the CC company terminating their agreement and perhaps suing them.