[switz]

Can someone explain to me if EU card transactions are capped, why Stripe charges me (US) the full ride on my EU customer's cards? In fact, I get charged even more for EU cards – perhaps as much as 2.5% extra.

I just checked and I get charged ~8% in fees on a 10 euro transaction on Stripe. Of course some of that is the low transaction amount (flat 0.30), but it's brutal for a small business like myself.

    2.9% + 1.5% (intl card) + 1% (currency conversion) + 0.30

    Payment amount (€1.00 EUR = $1.15253 USD)
 
    €10.00 EUR -> $11.53 USD

    Fees

    Total:    - $0.93 USD

    Stripe currency conversion fee 
    - $0.12 USD

    Stripe processing fees
    - $0.81 USD

    Net amount
    $10.60 USD

I guess the NA interchange is charging the card, rather than the EU? Could using a MOR reduce the fee structure?

[CodesInChaos]

The EU only capped interchange fees, which is the amount that goes to the bank that issued the card. It did not cap the fees that go the your PSP. Which makes sense, since you can pick the PSP you do business with, but you can't pick the bank that issues your customers' cards.

(And I don't think it applies to US merchants like you anyways)

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_15_...

[bijowo1676]

perhaps they are capped only for EU merchants, because EU government works to protect their own companies and citizens from foreign artificial unregulated monopolies.

in US, the government is more protective of private monopolies due to lobbying

[sam345]

How are you defining monopolies? Companies that are successful? Because you seem to be defining most US companies that do business in Europe as monopolies. It seems that this is the kind of mindset that has kept Europe behind. Too bad. Regulation that keeps out competition or needlessly puts obstacles in place is bad for the consumer, bad for employment, and bad for the general standard of living. And If you think US companies are unregulated then you haven't seen the 20 ft of federal CFR regulations together with the regulations of 50 different states that US companies have to deal with everyday.

[bijowo1676]

Monopolies are one-two companies that capture the market and lobby the government to fortify the regulatory capture via:

1. regulatory bloat, artificial increase in cost of business to prevent new competition

2. lack of anti-trust enforcement, government fails to protect the consumer and instead protect the monopolies' income

[colechristensen]

You're not in EU so the full stack is happy to charge you whatever it can.

[era-epoch]

Yeah, you don't live in the EU.

[lxgr]

Interestingly, the EU did manage to cap interchange on US cards paid by EU merchants to pretty much the same rate as that paid for domestic/intra-EU cards, at least at the POS. Many things are possible with a regulator with teeth.

[sph]

Uh… more profit?