7d ago

Canada needs its own credit card payment method.

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.

37 comments

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.
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.
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.
- Maestro you mean?
- I know. It's ridiculous.
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.)
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.
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.
"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.

37 comments