Buy British

113 readers

10 users here now

We left the EU and the US is threatening tariffs, best buy British.

Elsewhere in the Fediverse:

External:

Chat

founded 5 days ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Visa/Mastercard alternatives? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ever thought about how strange it is that this duopoly handles such a large volume of transactions?

What are we doing to combat this?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Re your 1st question: no, not strange (welcomecto banks and capitslism 101!), but I agree that it would be better to have more alternatives.

There's not any quick and easy alternatives as all UK banks use Visa as far as I'm aware, but here's some thoughts/possibilities.

Shops, cafes, pubs etc: cash

You could possibly use a cash card account rather than current account with debit card. I have seen that they don't have Visa on them, but maybe you can only use them to withdraw cash so it may not be an option beyound cash in hand.

Pay for bills: direct debit, bank transfer or at the bank with cash.

Online shops etc: Paypal, Apple, Google pay etc (though not really a better option given the likely reason for wanting to avoid Visa & MC)

Other online payment services such as Stripe, Venmo and digital wallet providers exist but I'm not sure how all of these work and I wouldn't be surprised if some are owned by or subsidiaries of Visa/MC so look into them first. There's also Gocardless which appears to use the open banking system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

When you configure Apple Pay you are still proxying to visa Mastercard though right?

At the end of the day all plastic currency is hosted on Amex visa or MC

It’s crazy there’s no open banking

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

I think someone else said the same, so those don't appear to be an option.

Visa appears to be the most common in the UK as far as I have seen. It is disappointing, but I guess it works for the banks etc kinda like the national grid for electricity.

I looked a little into open banking and Money Savings Expert say "Technically, banks share your information securely via technology called application programming interfaces (APIs). APIs simply allow two providers to 'talk' to each other and pass the information you've given permission to share, such as your bank balance and regular payments. " which doesn't sound like Visa or others are involved to me.

There's also https://www.openbanking.org.uk/what-is-open-banking/ which says much the same with no mention of Visa etc.

Banks do have systems to transfer money that doesn't involve Visa etc. It looks to me like open banking uses this or is a new system.

I had a look at Stripe also, this appears to be for businesses with customer's requiring to use debit or credit cards so that's ruled out!

Online banks: Starling bank uses MC but Revolut doesn't say what system they use with their cards.

There's Skrill, an e-wallet company. You can transfer in using open banking and can pay online without a card but I suspect the number of businesses that facilitate payment from them may be low. You can get a physical or virtual card, but that uses MC.

I found reference to a number of other e-wallet compnies but you'll have to do you're own research from here!