We have one. We don't use it for credit cards but we could if we wanted to. We use it for debit transactions.
And it is orders of magnitude cheaper for retailers than credit cards.
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.
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.
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.
Appreciate the clarification. Guess I missed the memo when they changed that a few years back!
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.
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.
Yeah, some kind of legislation here would be nice. At least the credit card companies aren't as entrenched as in the states.
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
Yeah, having someone bigger on your side when a purchase goes sideways is a big perk.
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.
I think we need our own everything. If it isn't being done in Canada and we are relying on someone else for it, we should be on that whenever and as soon as possible. Especially considering how unstable the geopolitical situation is.
We're also an international destination for education, travel, and business. We absolutely could present an alternative to VISA and expect international participation.
Don't get all isolationist, my friend. Having domestic options is a good idea, but you will be dependent on international countries somehow. And that's true for the world, right?
So, maybe soften your stance. Or don't, as you prefer.
I read their comment as proposing to aim for potential self-sufficiency. That doesn't necessarily imply isolationism. Developing homegrown options isn't mutually exclusive with global trade.
It can just mean having domestic alternatives to assert our sovereignty in case, say, a fascist movement takes over the government of our largest trading partner with who we share the world's longest border, or something like that. Purely a hypothetical, of course.
I see no reason to soften my stance as it isn't isolationist to say anything we can do on our own we should be doing on our own considering the unstable geopolitical climate. That's true for every country, wouldn't you agree?
I know that Japan, for example, has their own independent ones, I think?
Many companies have payment methods like QR codes that link with bank accounts (or require manually topping up in their own system from your account via transfer or ATM) and we have that in Japan. I'm not aware of any credit card that isn't using the VISA/MC/Amex infrastructure (unless you want to count gift cards that only work in a specific store). I don't know if the QR codes work at all for online stuff (I'm a luddite about that stuff: cash and credit work fine for me).
The other thing to note that, even were Canada to create its own domestic network, travel becomes harder for Canadians until/unless any common networks integrate with it.
Don't we have JCB? Is that piggybacking off MC or Visa's infrastructure?
And yes, you can do online payments using stuff like PayPay.
I did a little bit of digging (I checked before my comment and noted JCB asked the user to pick Visa or MC, but didn't dig deeper). Apparently, they do use their own network domestically, but overseas they user partner networks (Amex, Discover, UnionPay, etc.)
Very cool. Thank you for doing the digging!
Credit card charges need to be transparent and charged directly to the user and not the merchant. Otherwise there is no downward pressure on pricing and Canadian consumers will continue to get ripped off.
Interac needs to enter the credit card market.
I agree. But to manage the payment cycle, fraud, and chargeback processes, they'd need to partner with the big banks who already partner with the legacy CC companies. I would expect that those companies would push back hard.
That's one thing to add to the list to boycott the US. Stop using visa and mastercard and use debit instead.
I really wish I could.
Well... you can. What's stopping you?
Edit: Actually let me answer that myself: online payments. None of the sites I know use Interac. It's strictly credit cards and Paypal.
Not just Canada. It's almost the entire world. Many Asian countries rely on Alipay, the rest of the world is under the control of US payment systems. Even in European countries the UK based Maistro has been replaced for Visa or Mastercard.
I know. It's ridiculous.
"Diner's Club"? What year is it? 1987? That's the last time I remember a business actually accepting that card...
Hahahahaha I dunno I saw a sticker for it somewhere recently. I also had one when I was working at Deloitte for expenses.
Not a horrible idea.
Nothing's going to beat GNU Taler.
Discover Financial Networks was for sale. But instead of Canada buying it, it’s now owned by capital one. Gotta be quicker next time!
BRICS
No.
What's going on Canada?
🍁 Meta
🗺️ Provinces / Territories
🏙️ Cities / Local Communities
Sorted alphabetically by city name.
🏒 Sports
Hockey
Football (NFL): incomplete
Football (CFL): incomplete
Baseball
Basketball
Soccer
💻 Schools / Universities
Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.
💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales
🗣️ Politics
🍁 Social / Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca