Comment by SOLAR_FIELDS | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SOLAR_FIELDS | Hacker News Reader

A few interesting takeaways I got from the article, which was also pretty light on details:

Europe only for now. Why?

Title of HN article says alternative to credit cards. But you click into the article and it says the use case is an alternative to the “traditional direct debit process” as well. Which would make more sense as an alternative than credit cards, which exist in Europe but aren’t nearly as widely used as in the States. How is this different than “direct debit”?

The article then outlines one main benefit of this is

> The service should help people deal with problems like unauthorized auto-renewals of subscriptions, by making it easier for people to reverse direct debit transactions and get their money back, Visa said.

But then immediately thereafter says this won’t apply to arguably the three most problematic and abusive bad actors in this space. Why?

> It won’t initially apply its A2A service to things like TV streaming services, gym memberships and food boxes, Visa added, but this is planned for the future.

Honestly the article left me with more questions than answers

The first one is pretty easy, it’s because direct bank payments in EU are popular with things like klarna, SEPA, etc. so they are just competing with existing players.

I’ve noticed that when my credit card number changes, the only automatic payments that transfer to the new number are unwanted services.

I wish I could just autoflag anything that is set to survive a credit card number change as fraud.

The card networks actually provide this service (it's called a card account updater) for a small fee to merchants/payment gateways/etc, so the ones that are transferring are doing so with your card companies help and to the card companies benefit. I wouldn't expect that to go away any time soon

Why does your number change so often? I’ve had cards for decade or more that hasn’t changed.

Any time card fraud is detected & confirmed, or reported by you, you get a new number.

Consider yourself lucky.

Though the issuer may or may not invalidate tokens issued against the old card, and so your unwanted subscriptions often continue forever.

That's probably not good. Getting a new card every few years lowers your exposure to fraud, as it's just a matter of time before it ends up in a card dump. The whole system is pretty terrible, but limiting the window during which fraud can occur for your card is a small mitigation.

It's crazy how paying for things in 2024 is halloween candy bowl left outside rules. How do we have anything other than "you have authorized a recurring payment to <x> of <amount> manage or cancel it <here>," it just enables this cancelling game and automatic price increase nonsense.

We wouldn't need legislation to make people stop behaving shitty if they didn't have the ability by virtue of how the system is set up.

That's how it works in the UK, all direct debits show up in your bank account and you can unilaterally cancel them and they auto-cancel if it's not been used in over a year.

You're also protected if an incorrect payment was made.

No idea why not every country has this.

> Europe only for now. Why?

IMHO banking infra is very mature, and banking regulation helps these kind of initiatives.

Other regions might also have many innovative companies, but there's probably no central rule guaranteeing banks have an API or are interoperable at all.

Indeed, as the article states:

> Visa’s A2A product relies on a technology called open banking, which requires lenders to provide third-party fintechs with access to consumer banking data.

> Open banking has gained popularity over the years, especially in Europe, thanks to regulatory reforms to the banking system.

But wait! I thought that open markets with low to zero regulations were the only way to ensure a competitive environment?

I wonder if this is a way for VISA to datamine transactions?

In the US there are plenty of bills paid via direct bank payment (bank id + account number) and I don't think visa can see that data.

But with this scheme they would have a more complete picture for every cardholder.

Additionally, there might be a transaction fee (smaller than a credit/debit card?)

have numbers for that? always assumed the usa had 100% of the population using credit cards AND signing up for give-up-all-privacy points programs.

also your water and power payments mean very little too them. they already have your zip code, and all your app and food and store purchases

The vast majority of my monthly payments (by dollar amount) are actually paid via bank transfers.

People don't pay their mortgage/rent, their car payments or their utilities using their visa card.

In situations where it is possible to pay with a credit card, there is a transaction surcharge that is a multiple of any "points program" or cashback benefit.

that was exactly my point. those are the transactions the CC operators don't care about. they would be only expense for them, that's why there's always extra high fees.

they don't care about recurring payment for data they already have.

They (Visa) can't see much aside from which merchant, how much and when you've paid. That's still pretty powerful metadata, but in most sane legal jurisdictions with decent PII protection statutes, they can't willy nilly go link that to your shopping receipt and break down your purchase to line items.

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