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Comment by dogma1138 | Hacker News Reader

And what exactly would prevent Apple from using the same scheme in the UK and Europe at large?

Nothing, except that then their card would have 0% acceptance.

Much harder sell to get people to get the card if no merchants accepts it, and harder to get merchants to take it if nobody has one. There's a reason why the credit card market is almost entirely American Express, MasterCard, and Visa.

If they wanted to pay higher cashback than the standard interchange rates allow, they'd be charging merchants more than they're charged for accepting MasterCard or Visa, which means you'll end up with at most spotty acceptance like American Express.

At least in London I've only seen a handful of places that don't take Amex, and as of today I can think of only one a coffee shop I sometimes use.

In Germany the acceptance for credit cards only became large scale after the interchange fee was limited. Today, most stores that accept card payments also accept credit cards, but only MasterCard and Visa. Using an AMEX as your primary card would be a pretty bad experience, because you'd constantly need a backup.

With that said, I'm happy most merchants don't put up with the humongous fees—in the end the prices are just raised to compensate for them.

Same in NZ. People who work for more... insular... American companies here are regularly embarrassed by being unable to use their corporate card (because e.g. IBM mandate Amex) most of the places they go.

My experience in Glasgow, FWIW, is that the majority of independent shops/cafes/etc. don't take Amex.

Acceptance of Amex stands at just over a third of retailers UK wide. For London it is more like 50-60%.

Source: used to work as a CC payments analyst.

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