[shpx]

It's surprising that Visa and Mastercard are even private companies. I expected that the government would be in charge of money and not let a group of people impose a 1-3% tax on their population. In the US, credit cards account for "71% of nationwide retail sales dollars".

Governments aren't competent enough to do tech stuff well and they would never make something that works in a different country as well as credit cards do, but still.

[rbanffy]

> a group of people impose a 1-3% tax on their population.

It seems the consensus is that a taxes are only bad if you have to pay the government. If it's a small set of companies that collectively own a virtual monopoly, it's because they earned it.

[contingencies]

Competition is for losers. - Peter Thiel

[Qem]

This is probably the Holy Grail of neoliberalism: Even taxes are privatized!

[sowbug]

If half my local plumber's profits go to private equity, it's capitalism. If half go to taxes, it's socialism.

[estebarb]

It is not only "their" population. Mastercard and Visa captures a % of each sale done globally with their cards. It is perfectly reasonable for all countries to want to develop their own payment systems and stop paying taxes to the USA.

[x-complexity]

> It's surprising that Visa and Mastercard are even private companies.

Asianometry provides a great summary as to how both of them came to be: For Visa, a 1976 rebranding of the BankAmericard program. For Mastercard, a 1966 meeting of banks as opposition to BankAmericard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2rKS4l6MAk

[nitwit005]

The US already has a competing payment system for benefits (EBT cards), as do many other countries.

Payments themselves are not a technical challenge, no matter who's doing it. The fundamentals are trivial. You move numbers between accounts.

It's tackling fraud and dealing with disputes that's a challenge.

[hakfoo]

The hardest part is network effects.

Consider that the largest payment card network on Earth (China UnionPay, 7 billion cards) - decided it was easier just to bootstrap acceptance in the US by a partnership with Discover rather than connecting directly to merchants.

If you want a new scheme to work, distribute something like social security and welfare cheques through it. That immediately forces broad acceptance.

[numpad0]

Isn't US EBT card on the same payment network as credit cards? That doesn't count as an independent system. The same set of "they" as Visa/Mastercard gets the fee.

[tardedmeme]

Most countries have some kind of bank wire system that is in charge of the money itself. Cards are pre-authorization system. The movement of money is authorized when you swipe the card, but not actually moved until up to a few days later, through the existing bank wire systems. If there's a currency conversion involved it can be even trickier.

[Qem]

> Governments aren't competent enough to do tech stuff well and they would never make something that works in a different country as well as credit cards do, but still.

There's some counterexamples: Postal systems, GPS and the internet were started as government projects that now interoperate and cover almost the whole globe.

[RobotToaster]

The US is controlled by finance capital, the elections are just to choose it's spokesperson.

[ronsor]

Banks are private companies. The Federal Reserve is partially private.