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%. 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. 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.
Note that most of that fee (80%) goes to the issuing bank. The rest is split between network (“the logo on you card”) and the actual payment processor.
Yes, it’s still .15% that visa or mc take but still (also, I think visa was a cooperative at one point held by all the member banks, not sure that still is the case). And CCs are dumb but that’s not the point here :)
(Source: https://www.retailcouncil.org/payment-and-credit-card-fees/)
Hey, that’s a great source link. Thanks for that!
I guess having the issuing bank take most of the fees is why everyone pushes having you use their credit card.
Either way, a boycott of American includes not sending a % of a purchase to the US.