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.
Ahh, so as an American my only option is cash. 😔
Cash is better for privacy too. Don’t be paying for that abortion, gun, or donation to environmental cause in this climate with Visa.
Not denying that. Most card purchases my family has is for groceries or clothing anyways.
A book here and there.
I don’t have much experience with American cards. I know debit cards are more common down there. Do they have the same merchant fees?
I work for an American credit card company, and my advice is to ditch credit and debit cards entirely. Use cash.
As another American who works in the industry, it’s a wedding cake of frighteningly bad software piled on top of well-intentioned but poorly implemented mandates piled on top of willful ignorance frosted with solving problems people don’t actually have. And the little couple on top are both the capitalist pigman from a 1930s Soviet poster that we all recognize thanks to Hexbear :`(
I prefer cash too.
Credit cards (when used correctly) is one of the few pro consumer products we have left.
Most cards come with fraud protection, something you cannot get with cash, checks, or gift cards.
Similarly, most cards come with purchase protections like extended warranties. I have a credit card that gives me free damage protection on my cell phone so long as I pay the monthly bill with it.
I’m not saying cash isn’t great but there are good reasons to use a credit card. At least for now.
I don’t think those benefits are worth it when you consider the cost of having your purchase history and personal data for sale to anyone who wants it.
Yeah one of the few fixes to our shitty situation is to end surveillance capitalism. It’s deconstructing our behaviors trending them and exploiting them vs ourselves and the people around us.
Cash becomes a component of a healthy surveillance free (ish) lifestyle. But you probably wouldn’t be posting on any internet site if you were all in on it enough for swapping over to cash to matter. haha.
I would love to hear your side of things. Cash is better for curbing impulse spending and it is of course anonymous but it is inconvenient. I feel like there’s a target on my back when I walk around with more than a couple hundred dollars.
My personal opinion is that the convenience isn’t worth the unspoken costs, much less the overt ones. Credit card processors already charge merchant fees on top of the interest charged by the banks that issue those cards, but they also get all your personal data associated with that card. It’s more than enough to be worth selling to advertisers, so anyone who cares to spend a few bucks can buy your purchase history and build a profile. Name, address, contact info, the coffee shop you visit regularly and when you can be found there, the daycare you send your kids to, etc. It’s very not-safe, especially when the government decides your type of person is now unpersoned.
More fundamentally though, I think the problem comes down to money itself. The use of any form of currency as both a store of value and a medium of exchange creates a multitude of perverse incentives to the detriment of society. Families work best when money isn’t coming between them, and I think that principle is generalizable to our species as a whole.
Well, when on business trips, I can’t just have a bunch of cash with me, so I could pay for hotels and every eventuality
Is there any way around that?
Ok now, let’s not go bringing back that nonsense. Cash is fine. You’re no more likely to be robbed than usual because you’re carrying a lot, and you can do what I do. If you need to carry a lot of money in cash, put $49 in your wallet and the rest in your sock.
I nearly asked “What about American Express?”. Sometimes I wonder how I graduated kindergarten.
It’s okay, there are 35(?) countries I believe in America. 1 that gets talked about a lot. Being that they are discussing this from Canada in America, I’d say it’s safe to consider maybe American Express could have been from Canada. Mexico, Argentina, Brasil, and most other large countries in America aren’t English primary, so it would be harder to pass them off.
From my experience, all countries in North and South America (except the U.S.) refrain from referring to anything they do as American because they would 100% be assumed to be U.S.
The Canadian banks are big enough to build a wholly Canadian credit system for global use, especially if they could get everyone in Canada (and maybe elsewhere) to switch right now.
They probably get too many incentives from Visa and Mastercard to find it enticing though, which is why they’re always pushing credit cards and offering cashback and airmiles, etc.
I think there is a European alternative being developed. Perhaps we can get in on that.
For this to work, Interac needs to incentivize using it like credit cards do.
All types of loans require a credit score of some kind, and credit cards are one of the best ways to build this. Additionally, credit cards usually offer some kind of return.
Also because of poverty, a lot of people have a dependency on credit or payment plans.
Interac needs to make a Canadian answer to the credit card.
I’m European. We don’t get credit card benefits, we just get stolen from. Everyone uses them nonetheless.
You can get a line of credit from your local bank, tranfser the available funds into your checking account on demand, then use your Interac card. The amount and rates are variable, so you can start with a small amount with a high rate (like starter credit cards), and as you build a reputation, you can be loaned larger amounts at a better rate. No third party credit card company required.
This is definitely one of the biggest hurdles with getting rid of credit cards, the lack of easy credit history.
Going the line of credit route is ok, but there’s no grace period before interest is charged, unlike most credit cards. So it’s something to be aware of.
Part of the problem for me is that paying interest to RBC, BMO, Scotiabank, TD, CIBC, BN in place of American payment networks when they aren’t really hurting for money, is not really helpful or impactful for anyone except for me in a negative way.
Mileage may vary, but in my experience in attempting to get a line of credit, theres a lot more information that needs to be not only shared (for the banks and credit unions I’ve tried applying to, both and credit card statements for the last 3 months needed to be shared, along with a written explanation on what I’d need a line of credit for).
The barrier to approval is rather high as well, especially if you don’t have any assets to provide as collateral (for a secured line of credit at least.)
It’s doubly a challenge if you don’t have a “good enough” net worth as well which if you’re out of school and had to take out student loans, then you’re already starting out with negative net worth.
In comparison, I was blanketly approved for multiple credit cards and all I had to provide was the necessary identifying information and a salary.
It sounds like I’m shooting down the option of getting a line of credit, but it can be a very difficult process to obtain one unless you can get a guarantor to co-sign, or you happen to be in a financially secured position to begin with, which isn’t the case for a lot of people, but still a very good option to attempt at getting.
