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It’s also putting way too much power with VISA / Mastercard / Amex.

We now have corporations who can skim off a percentage of absolutely every sale. And they keep putting up their prices.

I don’t mind paying with a card but there needs to be a new option that cuts these companies out.

Here in India government has come up with a few policies that helps a lot in this regard. Firstly we have UPI that allows for instant bank account to bank account transfers. Most banks give 20-30 free UPI transactions per month. In addition, government came up with a rule to have 0 transaction fees on low value transactions on cards. In addition to this, government has also been promoting a alternative to visa/mastercard with the rupay network. I think more countries need to look into these.

Here in India cash use is still very popular and mostly used for tax avoidance and to avoid surveillance by the government agencies.

The UK (when part of the EU) limited the fees Visa and MasterCard can charge — 0.2% of the transaction for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards.

Electronic transfers (made by website, telephone, app, in the branch etc) between bank accounts are also free for consumers, although I don't think there's any rule requiring this.

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