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The average transaction cost is baked into sticker prices, so at the end of the day, it's the buyer who pays the transaction costs. It's like saying 'the merchant pays rent' - yes, in a way, but really no. The customers pay the rent for the merchant via mark-ups. However, there are a number of benefits; for one, average ticket size is about 20% higher for credit transactions vs cash (if I recall correctly) and merchants do not have to hold onto and manage piles of cash. This is a material cost savings. Further, of that 3%, about 0.1% goes to Visa, the rest goes to the issuing bank and covers the cost of rewards programs and loan origination. Generally speaking between 1 and 2% of that will be rebated to the buyer. For the remaining 0.9-1.9%, customers get benefits like insurance and the ability to issue chargebacks. In Europe, debit interchange is capped at 0.2% and credit at 0.3%, and they just don't have insurance or rewards. As it stands today if you wanted to transact in crypto, not only will you pay the $30 fee, you'll also be paying the mark-up for credit acceptance. |