Some updates.

I have implied over the years that ChaseNet to merchants brings a lower rate to merchants than going via Visa directly. I found a university system that exposed that pricing difference, it is very significant even if specialized for a government services MCC.

https://www.umsystem.edu/ums/fa/trea...dit_card_costs

I was also puzzled why Visa and Chase reupped their rented network/flat rate deal early. Now, we know why, it was to blunt the effect on Visa when Chase announced their first non-cobranded Mastercard. I think it was conceivable for Visa's market value to have taken a significant drop if the largest US issuer had the MC announcement without it.

Now, the Mastercard deal is likely an easy win for Chase. I suspect Mastercard is fully rebating all of its revenue and maybe kicking in a bunch of marketing dollars to Chase. This makes each Freedom Flex transaction much more profitable on this card even with enhanced rebates.

It still appears to be Chase in the driver seat in the industry. Now, we still are not clear if Chase is making enough to cover the enhanced rebates (we know that was not happening on CSR), but picking up merchant volume seems an easy win.

I am also not sure how much of Paymentech transactions which I believe runs Square transactions and likely Amazon too slip into ChaseNet, but there is still a lot of details hidden out there.