Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bko | Hacker News Reader

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> No one should have to open an account with visa just to shop at a retailer.

You know you have to pay just to enter Costco right? What's the difference if they want to force customers to use cash or Visa. Do you feel the same way about businesses that reject Discover?

I really don't understand the outrage.

> Ahhh, fearmongering about KYC. Know your customer is an obviously good regulation for banks to know the type of business they are partnering with for both risk assessment and anti fraud protections. So, what scams are you in favor of allowing by removing KYC regulations?

KYC and AML measures have a limited impact on stopping fraud and terrorism financing. Current efforts intercept only an estimated 0.1 to 0.2 percent of laundered money. A 2018 study suggested that the overall impact of AML policy intervention on criminal finances is less than 0.1 percent, which is considered negligible. This aligns with a 2011 UNODC report indicating that "much less than one percent (probably around 0.2 percent)" of the proceeds of crime laundered via the global financial system are seized and frozen.

Regulations should not be judged by intentions but rather results

https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/why-anti-money-laundering...

> What's the difference if they want to force customers to use cash or Visa.

I'll leave the cash option aside because the provider of cash is the US treasury. But yes, I do think it is wrong for a merchant to only allow mastercard or visa or discover. I understand merchants not taking Amex because their fees are significantly higher on the merchant side, but discover, mastercard, and visa are all similar for the merchant. I work in payment processing for a multi billion dollar company and we gladly accept all of these card types. My issue is with visa providing Costco with a kickback, so that Costco then pressures you to have an account with visa. It should be totally fine if someone just happens to have only mastercard cards and wants to shop at costco. I'm against kickback schemes.

As for the AML/KYC ineffectiveness argument, I'm reading through that 2018 study now.

I don’t understand this line of argument at all… Costco has competitors, you do NOT have to go to Costco. I choose not to go to many places because I disagree with their business practices or politics or whatever I feel like - it is my right. I do not understand this at all - especially in America. You don’t want my MasterCard or Discover or WhateverNewPaymentThingy? Great, imma head over to XYZ and spend my money there. Going to Costco (or any other business) and saying “you must accept XYZQ form of payment or else…” feels China-ish at best. And excusing Amex - why is that?! Fees alone? So we’d be cool if Visa just said “whatever you have to pay MC/Discover we’ll do it for one penny less”? At Costco’s scale that’d still be a boatload of money

> And excusing Amex - why is that?! Fees alone?

To be fair, the core AMEX product is a charge card, not a credit card. They have more recently expanded into a few credit card products. I don't know the exact details, but my understanding is that the charge card system is more merchant hostile than the credit card system and more than simply larger fees.

but we are establishing here that companies (like Costco) have the right to choose which payment methods they allow in their store… if they can (of course they can and no one should stop them) then they can - end of story

If you want a healthy market, your standard cannot simply be: As long as there is more than one retailer in the space, retailers can place whatever restrictions they want on how you pay for their services. Businesses in one sector being able to directly affect consumer choices across sectors is how you end up with cross sector monopolies.

It is bizarre to bring up China here, this isn't about the state dictating the payment system but maintaining a healthy market. It's like a garden, you don't dictate exactly how the plants grow, but you prune them once they encroach onto other plants to maintain a healthy balance.

I brought up Amex because it is common for merchants to not accept it, due to it being a significantly worse deal for the merchants. I am fine with the argument for an even more expansive version of my argument, but I'm making a more narrow argument due to discover, visa, mastercard being so close in how they function that it is not a burden on merchants to accept one vs the others.

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