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Comment by ChrisLomont | Hacker News Reader

What do other countries do?

Regulate interchange fees (or use regulatory enforcement threats to obtain concessions from natural financial monopolies).

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_19_...

Control-F "The Commitments"

In the US, debit card fees are regulated (the Fed won it's case in 2015 at the Supreme Court regarding this), but not credit card interchange fees.

Cap fees or just have more competition in general (typically tied to smartphones).

The same stuff

No, in the EU the user and retailer directly pay all fees, and the size of the fees and transparency is regulated.

Also, in most other countries, merchants are allowed to explicitly charge extra for paying by credit card.

Merchants are allowed to charge a surcharge for credit card usage in the US.

IIRC, even now they're still not allowed under the network rules.

A cash discount IS allowed. So, a $.10/gal cash discount for gas is OK. The register having a sign that says "we charge $.75 for card transactions under $30" is not. Not that you don't see that all the time...

(It's been a while since I've drank the regulatory alphabet soup on this, could be mistaken. )

> Businesses are allowed to impose a surcharge on credit card purchases made on Visa and Mastercard, under a court settlement that took effect in January 2013.

https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/what-are-my-rig...

I don't think this is true. I lived in the UK, and there were same costs for cash and card. EU laws have this statement:

>Today’s ban means that it will be unlawful for retailers to charge additional fees when someone uses a particular credit or debit card, or other payment systems like PayPal, to make a purchase. This will ensure consumers can be confident that there won’t be any nasty surprises, and they won’t be penalised for wanting to pay in a particular way.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/card-surcharge-ban-means-...

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