The US have a monopoly on credit card payments with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club, etc.
Even with online payment systems like PayPal, GPay, Apple Pay.
The only Canadian option that I know of is the new Shop Pay, which is owned by Shopify. (And we all know the founder CEO, Tobias Lutke is a far-right fascist traitor who loves the idea of being a 51st state.)
Right now Visa and Mastercard are controlling what stores can sell, and what services can be provided. Censoring online content, like asking Steam and Itch.io to remove certain games.
What are examples of alternatives in other countries? I know that Japan, for example, has their own independent ones, I think?
Do you think they might be refused by American companies in order to keep their monopoly?
I’d like to know what you think.
Eh, sorta.
We have digital payment cards in Interac. A bunch of the chip components come from other countries though, and are part of an integrated supply chain, if that matters. You’re right though, that a chip card / payment card, is ‘technically’ functioning very similarly to a credit card these days.
Where they’re different is in the settlements and insurance side of the transactions. Debit cards are nearly instant settlements in most cases, and require funds to be present in accounts. Credit cards allow for delayed settlement based on statement reviews – so you can challenge bogus payments later, at your convenience, in theory. Both provide a degree of insurance, but generally the CC is better on that front – this is also likely why they’re much more broadly accepted in online payments.
Debit cards can theoretically be sync’d up with a personal loan, to function similar to a credit card in that you can “spend” money you don’t “have” – but doing so would require adjustments to Interacs terms, and likely trigger non compete clauses with Mastercard/Visa for anyone tryin to go that route. In terms of that ‘credit’ though, on a debit card it’d be entirely the liability of the bank/credit union issuing the card – with a proper ‘credit’ card, that liability/risk is essentially offloaded to a larger company that can accommodate larger risk, albeit with higher % interest across the board.
Another fun one though, if you’re thinking credit cards… is that Canada should have its own Canada-focused Credit Bureau. Using US companies like Equifax, means all your credit information is already in the hands of the US Government, even if they have “canadian” wings, due to the US’s Cloud act. Same goes for our government / institutions continuing to use things like Microsoft clouds – all that data is just exposed, and Canada’s doing/done nothin about it. There’re fairly clear reasons the US considers Canada their bitch, I mean, our own government/regulators literally cannot function without US tech companies supporting them / providing them with service.
My chequing account is tied to a credit margin. Any overdraft is added to the credit margin which I can pay off later.
The other thing about CCs is the security of having extended warranties, travel insurance, fraud protection, etc.
Interac has things like extended warranties and fraud protection, it’s just not ‘generally’ as good. Like here’s one from a mid sized CU in BC, community savings, talkin bout some of the perks. The extended warranty part reads as:
That coverage is better than some CCs from what I can tell, as many CC’s cap it at one extra year.
That’s pretty damn good!
A few years ago I made the choice to switch all of my purchasing from debit to a credit card. So far it’s been entirely the right decision for me. Besides the safety of never using my own funds directly, I earn points and perks on my purchases.
Disclaimer: I pay the card off completely every month so there are no interest charges, and it’s resulted in both my credit rating and available credit skyrocketing far more than I’ll ever need. Comforting for emergencies.