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Comment by CogitoCogito | Hacker News Reader

> Additionally, what laws are in place to require support for those without a smart phone? My barber dropped debit card support in favor of Swish, but still accepts cash. But places are increasingly going cash-free, which may mean Swish-only in the future.

Does anyone know the advantages of only accepting Swish and no card? I thought EU interchange fees were pretty low and also thought EU merchants didn’t generally own/pay for the terminals as well.

Only accepting Swish and cash is kind of a middle finger to visitors. Maybe the barber doesn’t care, but I’m wondering if it’s just laziness or just happens to much cheaper.

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I spent 5 minutes googling this, so I might well have missed something, but what I found was that a card terminal from zettle has a upfront cost(first one is cheap, additional ones more expensive) and they then charge 2.5% on all transactions.

Swish charges SEK 2.50 per transaction.

Upfront costs can probably be neglected for any decently sized business, but if your average transaction exceeds 100 SEK, then swish will be cheaper.

I would assume it's also more handy for the merchants, since you with a terminal there is technology for you to maintain and operate, while with swish the tech you operate is literally a QR code.

Hmmm I never realized the terminals/fees were so expensive. Maybe Swish’s competition will force a drop in those fees, but yeah in Sweden it’s pretty easy to go over 100 SEK especially for a barber where there will basically never be transactions below that.

Yeah I've never been charged less than 700 at a barbers in Sweden that I can recall. My gf usually has 4 digits in her bill, but she likes to go for more ambitious treatments than I.

The swish only approach makes a lot of sense in that context, as the payment processing fees differs by a factor of 10!

Charging a percentage to process a payment doesn't feel right to me, it's not like a 1000 SEK payment is more work than a 5 SEK payment for the banks.

> Does anyone know the advantages of only accepting Swish and no card?

It may be cheaper for the merchant, though I'm not aware what the card fees are. It's also just easier to do than accepting cards (especially if you are a small company, or just don't have an "actual" company at all)

It's also instant, which I don't think card payments are.

Yeah it makes me wonder about the relative cost/hassle of having Swish versus regular cards. With cash they could maybe avoid paying some taxes, but I don’t see how Swish gets them out of that.

It’s largely because of cost. A credit/debit card will cost the merchant ~1-4%, whereas Swish is essentially free.

It’s also important to point out that Swish is a collaboration between the major Swedish banks.

> whereas Swish is essentially free.

It's free for individuals, companies pay per transaction (somewhere like 1.50 to 2.50 SEK depending on the bank, and usually a fee for the phone number)

Right, which is essentially free compared to CC :)

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