Amazon no longer accepts visa

Well the image says it all lads. I think it’s pretty BS.

Personally I’m long both Visa and Amex and pretty sure American Express charges much higher merchant fee.

Visa *should be somewhat in line with what Mastercard charges but I haven’t checked in years

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Agree at first it looks BS, as AMeX are known for their high fees.

Only credit card though not debit.

And most common credit cards are under MasterCard I believe so it’s not going to effect many people.

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American Express partner with Amazon though, they have Amazon branded AMEX cards, so I expect there is benefit to both. I do think this payment space is both very strong, but also in a slight state of flux as I still think it could be disrupted, I don’t have a horse in this race anymore in terms of Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Paypal etc… (I own Amazon though).

I expect they will come to a deal and it wont happen.

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Why only Visa credit cards issued in the UK but other countries issue Visa credit cards as well…or is this a UK monopoly thinggy?

It’s essentail to have both Visa and Mastercard credit cards

i’m amazed that Amazon for all it’s hype can’t negotiate different terms with Visa

https://www.ft.com/content/4820b619-4d35-4c6a-8523-fc685c047374

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It’s another Brexit side effect.

Because cards’ fees were capped in UK due to EU legislation, UK leaved the EU, so card issuers became free to increase their fees.

Now UK is trying to “return” to the previous EU legislation, so it can be competitive. But I’m wondering why UK wants to negotiate with EU, if the problem is with Visa, an US company. After all, it seems that there were some good things of being part of a economic bloc as the EU. :wink:

Since Brexit, an EU-enforced cap on fees charged by card issuers is no longer in place in the UK.

The move by Amazon, earlier reported by Bloomberg News, has prompted the UK Trade Commission to call on the government to improve the UK-EU trade agreement and analysts to call on British regulators to look into the fees in the credit card market.

“If Amazon can’t make it work, with all their resources and ability to navigate legislation to avoid costs, then small businesses have no chance and so the government must improve the UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement to keep British businesses competitive,” said Tamara Cincik from UK Trade and Business Commission

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It just goes to show some regulations are good, some not so good for consumers. In reverse, the UK has banned PFOF since 2012, and its still being considered in the EU, although France and Germany now pushing for it.

Looking into the Amazon thing more, not many people have Visa Credit Cards. Given that there is a bit of a monopoly between Visa/MasterCard/Amex/Paypal, perhaps relaxing the restrictions on charging structures, would allow new players an opportunity to the market.

With more competition in the market, perhaps things will go the other way and be better for consumers.

All depends on your view, I’m probably looking through rose tinted glasses on the competition point.

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For the record I’ve used American Express for years now. It’s great.

Never had a Mastercard debit or credit funnily enough.

All my other cards currently are visa which also pushed me to invest in visa back then.

Barclays and Morgan Stanley came out defending visa saying this is just a negotiating tactic and apparently most of the time the threat is rescinded.

Lately though I’ve noticed a lot of payment stocks have been dropping, PayPal and square too.

Mastercard sitting at a 7% gain on the 1 year but lags the market by quite a bit.

Honestly, not worried just annoyed as usual by Amazon.

There isn’t competition between the card payment schemes, it’s an oligopoly. The major players (btw, the US players, Visa/Mastercard mainly and also Amex in a smaller scale) can between themselves slice and control the card payments market. The only entity that was able to more or less control them is EU, that created legislation that capped their fees.

Curiously most European Fintechs partnered with Mastercard for their cards, including many UK Fintechs, Wise (ex-Transferwise), Revolut (also have Visa cards), Starling, Monzo, Monese, Curve, N26, bunq, Paypal, Neteller.

Barclaycard is a major player who use VISA. Nationwide do as well, as do Jaja (previously Post Office) albeit smaller players.

Natwest & Tesco both Mastercard. Not sure about the other big banks.

I think this will raise few eyebrows, call me an old school, why own a credit card and live on credit?

Amazon charge extra for using Visa in Australia and Singapore as well.

In this case, it’s because Amazon UK sales are booked in Luxembourg not the UK and Amazon doesn’t want to pay increased fees that Visa has announced.

Ironically, MasterCard announced the same changes before Visa did.

There are quite a lot in of UK Visa credit cards: Barclaycard, Nationwide, Jaja, Tymit, Coop/Smile, First Direct, Vanquis and most HSBC UK credit cards for starters.

I own a credit card and don’t use it to live on credit.

When shopping you can get extra protection using a credit card(Section 75), and I also collect bonuses as well. As long as you pay the card off in full, the bonuses are effectively free money.

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Live on credit?

It’s all about personal responsibility, spend responsibly and you can reap quite nice rewards at no detriment to yourself

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personal responsibility and spend responsibly = reduction in earnings/bankruptcy :rofl:

True story.

If you want to add math.

Someone tells you inflation is 6%, forecast for future is also inflationary.

If you can afford something in 1 go, but merchant offers 36/24/12 months payments without interest.

You are crazy to pay all at once.

Ofc we are talking about reasonable purchase , not overboard where once monthly rates are 80% of paycheck…

On topic of Amazon, me thinks it is way of Amazon trying to bully Visa for probably not accepting some Amazon benefited deal…

Not everybody as sensible as you

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