At 1:01 PM +0100 on 5/13/02, Ken Brown wrote:
>> I really wonder what component of this market is actually payment >> driven. After all, to easily buy *anything* over, say, $100 right >> now, you have to borrow money, use a credit card, to do it. > > ? > > I use a debit card, one that draws against my bank current account the > way a cheque does (probably "check" to you). It's the same card that is > used as a cheque card. Lots of purchases over $100. I've bought a > miniature video camera with it, maybe 1500 dollars US. > > Still involves merchant charges of course. As far as they are concerned > it is no different from a credit card. The cashier at the till probably > doesn't even know the difference (after all it says "Visa" on it). Yes, you're right. I was paying no attention to the man behind the curtain and forgot about debit cards, which, for the most part, are the same as credit cards as far as the merchant is concerned. BTW, while Link, in the UK isn't, the two largest ATM networks in the US, Cirrus and PLUS, are owned by MasterCard and Visa, respectively, and, yes, merchants still pay transaction fees for the use of those, plus the added cost of debit card network access over what's necessary to do a plain credit card transaction. Banks also pay origination fees to the merchant's bank, just as they would to a third-party ATM cash withdrawal. The better thing about debit cards, however, is repudiation risk. That is, you wait up to 90 days for a credit card to clear and settle (customer may protest a bill, and it's the merchant's responsibility to prove himself innocent :-)), and debit cards have a shorter window for that to happen, and usually only by not having money in the target account. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
