Merchants have a psychological (and in some countries, legal) barrier to charging more for cash than other payment methods, even though it's the least efficient. Given this, cash-back is the best way to share the efficiency gains with the end user. Maybe if Pix or Twint or debit cards or what-have-you are so efficient, they should also give consumers cashback.
I've seen merchants giving a discount for payment with Pix. And a few stores refuse credit cards and only accept debit and Pix (and cash?).
Also, isn't the main competitor to CC the debit card? And now in some countries instant payments? Is debit that rare in the US?
Although to be honest I'm not 100% sure if it isn't some tax evasion thing.
Huh, not sure I agree with that (the uniform pricing thing). I mean, one should believe that, but it doesn't appear to be true. For example, recently I saw a tablet for 208 euro (converted from GBP) on amazon.co.uk, approx 220 euro from amazon.de and 360 euro from amazon.ie, for the same item.
I was really surprised because I figured electronics would be pretty similarly priced across the EU/UK, but apparently not.
And the merchant gets the money after a long time. It is possible to advance the payment but the rates are much higher (10%+).
So, i dont think we can even think of credit cards as instant payment. And it has mich higher costs that, in the end, go back to the consumers.
You are right about convenience, but here, 1% fee makes a huge difference to make both ends meet.
You can give alms with pix, to show how widespread pix is.
That's because you (and everyone else in Switzerland, even those paying cash) is eating a 2-3% merchant fee markup. In the civilised world like the EU, where credit card interchange fees are capped of 0.3%, those cashback benefits (which is, again, your money you've just paid) don't exist.
> worldwide acceptance
For now, at a huge economy-wide cost. That skimmed 2-3% is what Trump is trying to protect.
> peace of mind
That's also country-dependent. In many countries, credit card transactions have no additional protections and chargebacks aren't the magic bullet they are in some.
> more convenient, safer, faster.
Pix is more convenient, safer (much, much safer and lower risk of fraud), and faster than credit cards. Cheaper too.
And let's not forget that cash acceptance costs an order of magnitude more than this anyway; if anything businesses should charge surcharges for accepting cash, not the other way around, and given the social constraint of no surcharges, cashback is a fair mechanism to reward efficient payment methods.
Only since Wednesday of this week due to COMCO action, so no-one knows if cashback will persist, but it will be a lot less than .33%.
> And let's not forget that cash acceptance costs an order of magnitude more than this anyway;
In the EU, it's .5% for cash vs .3% for cards, but the situation falls back into favour for cash once fraud is accounted for.
That Visa fee table is dated July 2023?