this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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How to get rid of Mastercard and Visa? (feddit.org)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by minilemmy@feddit.org to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
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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 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (9 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€“] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 days ago (3 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 4 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 4 days ago

At least it stays in the EU in that case

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