I started carrying my physical cards after that, and started using them more for quick transactions, as I'd rather risk dropping a piece of plastic rather than my phone.
I've entirely switched back to physical cards now, after exclusively using digital wallets for years.
One thing that helped is learning how much data is stored by the wallet providers. I fear data being used against me, in the future, in ways I cannot imagine today.
So imagine my surprise when a Stripe payment, for an online service to provide hormones for transitioning, which is legal where I live... Triggers Stripe to send an email phrased like it was necessary for order confirmation, and then to create a Link account presumably with the transaction details... Opt-in via dark patterns.
One thing not covered is the safety of wallets and the metadata around transactions, safety for individuals from the politics of the United States.
"Apple is reportedly using consumer data, such as spending history and which devices a user owns"
"Specifically, Google collects an immense amount of consumer data when consumers use the product. Google appears to use this data to develop new services and also in its advertisement business, among other thin"
Payments made by Apple Pay and Google Pay/Wallet both include a lot of data, and the use of that data by Apple, Google, Samsung, et al is "opted-in" when you chose to use the service and were presented with the very long ToS to agree to.
I bet most people didn't realise that Google may share all of that data (you can see your activity here https://payments.google.com/gp/w/home/activity ) with their affiliates and partners, the opt-out is hard to find and most people are unlikely to be aware of it, it's on this page: https://payments.google.com/gp/w/home/settings
Note: Stripe Link also collects a lot of data https://link.com/gb/privacy-center
Contactless card payments are naturally limited in the amount of data collected and very tight regulation about how it's used.
From a privacy standpoint cash wins, but realistically cards will be used offline and online... so cards which are not loyalty / points cards, and not used via Apple Pay, etc, and which you can use in person, or enter each time into a payment provider and not store are the best choice.
Of course, having just bought a lovely mid-sized leather wallet to replace a slightly finicky minimalist wallet (elastic is annoying), I was kind of hoping for some kind of dorky deep dive into physical wallets (which we used to just call "wallets.")
For a time, I just used a rubber band. Although it was stupid looking to other people, the rubber friction did help it stay in my pocket.
I've come to like tyvek wallets. Search "mighty wallet" or "tyvek wallet" on amazon. They are super thin, yet durable and functional. They also can look normal to people (unless you get the peanut butter and jelly sandwich one)
It is actually refreshing not to have a wallet.
(a) a large part of PayPal's margin comes from convincing individual consumers, as opposed to businesses, to keep money at PayPal
and (b) that while it's tempting to assume the benefit from this is to keep the interest rate spread, the bigger deal is getting to keep transaction fees when a user next sends that money via PayPal but one side of the transaction is open to paying credit card interchange fees for it.
Either by economic competition or by regulation.
For the competition angle to work, companies must be able to rewards customers for using payment solutions that circumvent the credit card fees.
Most likely because of that there are no "benefits" tied to CC nowadays here...
Most transactions are repeat business and require no trust intermediary.
> Most transactions are repeat business and require no trust intermediary.
I'm not an expert in this field, but I know enough to be humble when it comes to cybersecurity. I don't think fraud prevention is that simple.
We have the computers to make easy instant payments cheap. Let’s do it.
But it also isn't easy to charge the customer for the fee because it is different for different cards. I don't even know if there is a reliable way for the average business to know the fee, the card company just tells them at the end of the month.
Note that some businesses do not want to place this bet, and have long had lower debit card prices (such as US gas stations).
None of this is a problem with a debit card that’s debited to a bank account on real time.
There is a time and place for intermediaries, but most transactions don’t need them.
That's the thing that has to change.
Its hard to be specific without knowing what country you live in.
If it's not obvious it's the whole points/cashback scheme in Canada and especially the US what's driving up the fees for businesses and in the end all customers no matter the payment method.
Either we should have regulated maximum fees like the EU introduced and/or allow sellers to charge fees for certain payment methods - now the only option is to not accept AMEX at all.
I expect most digital wallets to be made obsolete by such a measure, because most of the use of a digital wallet as described by the post is easy, nearly free digital transactions by end-users. Everything else can be done using your regular bank account. An ECB-backed alternative to Paypal, Venmo, Cash App et al. would certainly be more trustworthy to citizens and the compulsory acceptance by merchants will artifically solve the chicken-egg problem that most such private companies have.
Ditto for debit cards, which would pose a threat to Visa and Mastercard.
I'm curious what kind of ecosystem will exist around CBDCs.
[0]: https://finance.ec.europa.eu/digital-finance/digital-euro/fr...
A shop is perfectly within their rights to refuse to sell you something if you are not willing to use their accepted payment methods.
Legal tender simply means they can't sue you if you offer to settle their debt using a legal tender currency. If they have refused to sell you the item, there is no debt, therefore no obligation to accept any particular instrument
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/what-is-legal-ten...
"To ensure the effectiveness of the legal tender of cash, this Regulation applies also to ex ante unilateral exclusion of payments in cash and to the access to cash", where ex ante unilateral exclusion of payments is defined as "a situation when a retailer or service provider unilaterally excludes cash as a payment method for example by introducing a ‘no cash’ sign. In this case, the payer and payee do not freely agree to a means of payment for a purchase;"
In Article 7, the regulation requires that member states monitor this practice and, if it undermines the intention of the legal tender (i.e. merchants must sell you goods for cash), they shall apply "remedial measures".
Also: IANAL, but at least in Germany, implied-in-fact contracts render the contract of purchase "signed" the moment you receive the good over the counter from the merchant. If you haven't payed by then, you are in debt to the merchant and from what I would say, the legal tender rules apply.
[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A20...
If my bank can offer direct instant settlement between my account and another person's, then why do I need any other services? If they can associate my account with a line of credit, why do I need a Visa/MC and why do they need to pay the network and interchange fees?
I my on-phone secure element (ie the "wallet") can support an app that is not EMV with all of it's legacy complexities, then why keep all that infrastructure?
All of that goes away.
APMs
The article is mostly good.
But it would have been munch more clear if Alternative Payment Method (APM) was directly acknowledged.
Because it’s easy to conflate wallets from APMs.
I guess it depends on what your product is. For stripe, FICO is sufficient.
I’m very bearish on crypto generally, but DeFi has started to catch my attention a little bit, as it does have potential to shake up finance more broadly.
"When we hear people like Tether saying we're successfully banking the unbanked, you can look at the median transaction over the Tron network, and it's between $100 and $300. If you looked at comparable numbers in the US for credit card transactions, the median transactions is between $40 and $80. And so, do you buy that they're banking the unbanked third world who are moving a lot more money around than people in the US do?"
Ethereum is a VM for example. Quite hard to see how it can be construed as a pyramid scheme tbh.
Kalzumeus.com