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A community dedicated to buying Canadian products.

Une communauté dédiée à l'achat de produits Canadiens.

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638

Let's stop dicking around and talk about ditching something big: Visa and Mastercard (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by Albbi@lemmy.ca to c/buycanadian@lemmy.ca

149 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Visa and Mastercard are American companies, and they essentially tax everybody by taking a percentage of purchase prices for themselves. Not exactly a small percentage either, 1.2% to 2.65%. Ever wonder why so many merchants say they don't accept American Express? That's because they charge quite a bit more to merchantes, 50% more than Visa or Mastercard. Anyway, we're letting American companies tax us and we love them because we get rewards when we use cards. But it's just a shell game because we pay more up front because businesses need to charge more to make up for payment processing charges. They get to sit in the middle and rake in the money.

Now the alternative in Canada is Interac. Interac charges a set amount per transcation. How much? 2 to 5.5 cents. Unless you're going through Apple or Google Pay, and then it's a percentage again.

Interac is also Canadian.

Want to stick it to Trump? Stop using credit cards (and Google Pay or Apple Pay) and switch to Interac. Want to make Canada better? Stop using credit cards and switch to Interac. Is it going to be inconvenient? Yes. Online shopping will be much harder but I have seen online Interac payments before and we can ask our favourite Canadian merchants to accept Interac online.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I have the same question as sloppychops. If my interac debit card is also Visa, how would I know whether the payment terminal is routing through Visa or Interac?

I am one who offers to pay in cash sometimes to small businesses, treating it like an additional tip. But more and more businesses in the Vancouver area use Clover (A Canadian subsidiary owned by Wells Fargo) and Square (American fintech), and either take card only (which they get their cut with Interac debit too), or the staff get a little impatient when I rummage around for cash in my wallet.

[–] IslandLife@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

I checked my bank for that recently. If you tap or use your PIN in Canada, it's Interac. Everything else is VISA.

[–] The_Caretaker@lemm.ee -3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Even if we dumped all online transactions and used cash for in person transactions, there isn't enough cash in circulation. Less than 3% of US dollars are printed on paper. The rest is just numbers on spreadsheets. There is no way we could function without electronic payments. This is true in almost every country that has a central bank that engages in fractional reserve banking.

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[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 1 day ago (1 children)