This topic worries me, although I'm not sure whether there really is a hidden danger or not.
In the last few years I've noticed how the banks are increasingly phasing out regular cards of smaller networks and it is becoming next to impossible to get a bank card without a Visa logo on it.
Then I had some transactions decline and had no idea why. One larger transaction was eventually fixed with a series of phonecalls. One of them actually put my life in danger - I was depending on a taxi app late at night to get home in a rather dangerous African country after an event and all of a sudden the credit card declined and for tiny amounts. So that left me quite passionate about this topic, and I thankfully managed to switch to cash for that taxi app, less to go wrong. I know there are others who have some amount of grudge against these companies.
I've been reading up on it - will not post any links or specific quotes now, but if there are signs of interest, will post a few links when more awake.
The duopoly is of course Mastercard and Visa. Visa is approximately the 10th largest company in the world with all the usual suspects as largest shareholders, Blackrock, Vanguard. I'm writing this from memory so please correct if some slight errors here. Mastercard is about a quarter of the size by market capitalisation, very similar major shareholders.
Apparently there is some technical difference in the networks, Mastercard being more decentralised while Visa having the entire world's transactions handled at a very small number of large data centres in America and one in London.
Of course the duopoly partially switched off transactions in Russia once the war started. They also notably both blocked funding to Wikileaks for a time.
Both these companies started around the 60s when groups of American banks got together to find better solutions for payments processing.
Russia now has its own card, I think it's called Mir but it is only accepted in Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and a couple of other places.
The other American cards, Discover, American Express, Diners Club I don't believe have their own actual network, they just borrow a network from the duopoly.
There are some other networks in Asia, JCB and Unionpay but in the West it really is a duopoly which covers north America, Europe, Oceania and in an incomplete sense the rest of the world. No independent networks for Europe at all.
Something else which is a duopoly are the operating systems Windows and iOS but at least we have Linux..
The mobile phone networks and landline networks are nothing like this - each region has its own although there are some common owners.
I'd be most surprised if Visa and Mastercard were not plotting and scheming a social credit score at Davos. I miss the days of cutting out an order form from a magazine and posting it with a money order or cheque.
It seems benign but it is an almost worldwide duopoly with similar shareholders. All kinds of merchants only accept those 2.
Does anyone know much about this topic or had any experiences worth sharing?
In the last few years I've noticed how the banks are increasingly phasing out regular cards of smaller networks and it is becoming next to impossible to get a bank card without a Visa logo on it.
Then I had some transactions decline and had no idea why. One larger transaction was eventually fixed with a series of phonecalls. One of them actually put my life in danger - I was depending on a taxi app late at night to get home in a rather dangerous African country after an event and all of a sudden the credit card declined and for tiny amounts. So that left me quite passionate about this topic, and I thankfully managed to switch to cash for that taxi app, less to go wrong. I know there are others who have some amount of grudge against these companies.
I've been reading up on it - will not post any links or specific quotes now, but if there are signs of interest, will post a few links when more awake.
The duopoly is of course Mastercard and Visa. Visa is approximately the 10th largest company in the world with all the usual suspects as largest shareholders, Blackrock, Vanguard. I'm writing this from memory so please correct if some slight errors here. Mastercard is about a quarter of the size by market capitalisation, very similar major shareholders.
Apparently there is some technical difference in the networks, Mastercard being more decentralised while Visa having the entire world's transactions handled at a very small number of large data centres in America and one in London.
Of course the duopoly partially switched off transactions in Russia once the war started. They also notably both blocked funding to Wikileaks for a time.
Both these companies started around the 60s when groups of American banks got together to find better solutions for payments processing.
Russia now has its own card, I think it's called Mir but it is only accepted in Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and a couple of other places.
The other American cards, Discover, American Express, Diners Club I don't believe have their own actual network, they just borrow a network from the duopoly.
There are some other networks in Asia, JCB and Unionpay but in the West it really is a duopoly which covers north America, Europe, Oceania and in an incomplete sense the rest of the world. No independent networks for Europe at all.
Something else which is a duopoly are the operating systems Windows and iOS but at least we have Linux..
The mobile phone networks and landline networks are nothing like this - each region has its own although there are some common owners.
I'd be most surprised if Visa and Mastercard were not plotting and scheming a social credit score at Davos. I miss the days of cutting out an order form from a magazine and posting it with a money order or cheque.
It seems benign but it is an almost worldwide duopoly with similar shareholders. All kinds of merchants only accept those 2.
Does anyone know much about this topic or had any experiences worth sharing?
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