this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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Hey guys!

Visa and Mastercard are the 8th and 15th biggest companies in the world, worth more than 1.1T USD (!!!).

For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.

That's one the biggest waste of money from EU you can imagine.

I'm trying to find viable alternatives but except paying cash it seem there is no real alternative. Even in where I live there is an alternate payment service but they take the money from my mastercard, duh...

And the idea would be to have something even my grandma can use, not some nerdy solution, any thoughts?

Edit: Bitcoin would be a solution if widely adopted, but more realistic would be something accepted by every cashier machine, and if possible using the NFC of your phone, a kind of "Apple/Google" Pay, that goes directly from your bank to the bank's shop. Where I live all debit cards are either visa or mastercard...

Edit2: There is an EU initiative that seem to be starting with WERO, never heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative

Edit3: It seem that Paysafecard and Skrill are EU solutions and sometimes proposed in the payment method, but not with STRIPE payment solutions

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[โ€“] victorz@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (5 children)

For any purchase made with a credit or debit cards and you give them 2-3% of your money.

I'm not sure I understand this. The stores would be the ones to pay this fee, no? Not you with your money. The price of some item doesn't change depending on whether you use cash or a debit or credit card. Not usually anyway, maybe a small local shop has done this to me once or twice in my life. Or maybe a fair stand or something.

If we wanted to stop giving Mastercard and Visa "our" money, we would have to all band together as a world community and boycott them. ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

Please someone correct me if I'm wrong!

Edit: I mean, yes, of course the price of those small transactions are included in the price of the item. So we are all "paying" Mastercard and Visa money, even those who aren't using them. Which is still to my point that we need to all band together as a world community to boycott them, which seems futile in all honesty.

[โ€“] Saleh@feddit.org 23 points 5 days ago

While the shop pays the fee, the fee is priced in and still the money ends up going to the card company based on your purchase.

We had this topic a lot with the tariffs recently. Yes technically the tariffs are paid by the importer or exporter. Doesn't change the fact that they end up being part of the consumer price (which is one of the purposes of tariffs)

[โ€“] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yes you're correct.
However, those costs are ultimately passed to you, as higher prices are the only 'trickle' that consumers will receive.

[โ€“] Obi@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Indeed, and if you're not using MC/Visa, then the vendors just happily pocket the difference.

[โ€“] Kualdir@europe.pub 4 points 5 days ago

At least it stays in the EU in that case

[โ€“] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

Handling cash costs money as well.

[โ€“] minilemmy@feddit.org 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You are absolutely correct

Now I just prefer my (or the store's money if you prefer) to recycle in the EU. We need it.

[โ€“] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

We do indeed. Although not gonna lie, Americans are also cash strapped. But Mastercard and Visa definitely don't need more money!

[โ€“] Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Technically you're right. The merchant pays the fee. But, those transactional costs are overall calculated into the prices. Like everything else e.g. transportation, packaging, wages, theft, breakage etc. So in the end it's the customer paying those 2-3% even though no price changes if you change payment.

As for the boycott: yes, sure. Voting with your wallet always works. The problem is how deeply they're burrowed into the system globally. The merchant doesn't care, it wants its money in whatever way. But if they don't offer an alternative, you can't boycott it (unless you erase that product from your life or find another merchant). And if you don't boycott it, they don't offer an alternative. Also most people simply don't care at all....

[โ€“] Renohren@lemmy.today 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

How does the store make money to pay those few % points? All consumers pay a percentage of the visa/MasterCard fee. So the prices stay the same in the store no matter the payment method.