[em500]

Here are the transaction costs for a retailer at the largest Dutch bank:

- Maestro, V PAY, Debit Mastercard en VISA Debit issued in Europe: €0.047-€0.06 per transaction

- iDEAL: €0.35

- Mastercard en VISA creditcards issued in Europe: 1.70%

- Mastercard en VISA creditcards and debitcards issued outside of Europe: 2.50%

https://www.ing.nl/zakelijk/betalen/tarieven/betalingen-binn...

For a €100 payment, we're looking at €0.06 debitcard transaction vs €1.70-€2.50 creditcard. If I were a Dutch retailer outside of areas/sectors with a lot of foreign/tourist business I probably wouldn't bother with credit cards either, as probably 99%+ of the Dutch have Maestro, VPAY or cash.

[BrandonS113]

I have European debit cards. They get rejected in many Albert Heijn when Dutch cards (debit and credit) are taken. Jumbo takes foreign cards. Jumbo gets my (and a lot of my colleagues who pass though) business, AH not. Many restaurants take Dutch credit cards and not non-Dutch European credit cards. I went to a restaurant that takes Bitcoin but not EU debit (and Bitcoin transactions costs are much higher)

So if the fees on non-Dutch European and Dutch cards are the same, what explains this? Xenophobia? That is what my colleagues in Holland say.

[em500]

There is no such thing as a generic "European debit card". Dutch retailers accept specifically only Maestro, VPay, MasterCard Debit or VISA debit cards, but usually not not VISA Electron, or various other other country-specific European debit cards like Bancontact or giropay or EC. Albert Heijn (except in a few stores in Amsterdam and Schiphol) doesn't accept any credit cards and does not distinguish between domestic or foreign. It's a matter of costs, not xenophobia.

Retailers just choose from the options from their bank, which are the debit card I already listed (Maestro, VPay, MasterCard Debit or VISA debit), and optionally VISA and MasterCard credit cards (which are separate from their debit cards). Retailers do not have the option of accepting Dutch Maestro/VPay but excluding Maestro/VPay issued elsewhere in Europe. They do have the option to exclude credit cards altogether, and many do for the reason of € 0.06 transaction cost vs 1.7% and that around 100% of Dutch account holders have one of (Maestro, VPay, MasterCard Debit or VISA debit). Xenophobia has nothing to do with it, any more than retailers in your countries might not accept Bancontact, giropay or UnionPay cards.

[landgenoot]

The actual problem is that merchants are not allowed to charge payment fees to their customers.

If you had to pay the fees as a customer, free market forces would do its job.