[QUOTE=biggestbopper;21939627]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

Thank you for that link. While interesting, but it is for a very specific case:

"Here's a look at what a $50 supermarket transaction costs with a Visa card cost in various countries, based on calculations of interchange fees based on October 2010 data available on Visa’s site."

France, according to that chart, has 0.5% - about double of what the EU commission wants to impose as the max. And this is according to Visa - we don't know if there are intermediaries who add charges of their own, and we don't know what protection against fraud is provided at that rate, and how fast the merchant receives the money.

Furthermore, you have to keep in mind that this is for supermarkets, which have very low profit margins in Europe (except for non-food items). So, for the longest time, supermarkets simply did not accept credit cards - only when the rates came down a lot, they started do accept them.

As the rates charged by payment networks vary by the type of business, you can not deduct from 0.5% for supermarkets that this is the rate any French business with any level of fraud and any payout-speed would pay.

Another thing to keep in mind are different fraud rates. They are much lower in Europe than in North America. This can influence the disagio rates as well.