Originally Posted by
sokolov
Do you have any sources to back this claim up? The EU Commission is introducing the legislation exactly because they deem the costs way to high and want to slash it by more than 90%.
This is great news to Visa and MC - it assures them that noone will be able to attack their market share with lower fees or special perks.
Or, more likely, their profits will drop dramatically.
In any event, for a recent summary of merchant costs in various countries see this story from the Christian Science Monitor.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/ne...urts-consumers
You will note there is a wide range in Europe with some (e.g., France) pretty low and some (e.g., Spain) pretty high. US rates are among the highest.
By the way, there was a long thread on FT a couple of years ago which got into merchant costs in France for taking cards and several French merchants, including an MD (in a small town), chimed in (gotta be amazed at FT's reach
) and the Doc advised that his merchant cost was zero or so close to zero it didn't matter as a matter of government policy.
This is the same thing I hear from friends in France who run small businesses. It is part of the same government push to provide high speed internet access in the smallest villages. High tech for all! So the country folks don't get left behind.