Visa/MC are probably going to try to target the margin that fintech startups have able to eek out at the lower end of the card processing market.
From their perspective, the fact that companies like Stripe and Square have been able to obtain unicorn valuations for card processing services means that there's money left on the table. Card processing was a basic commodity business before these guys. Somehow, Stripe et al have been able to convince a large swath of customers to accept 2.9% + $0.30.
Did you know that interchange on most debit cards is just 0.05% + $0.22?[1] That's massive margin.
Visa/MC is like, sorry Stripe, don't try to play our game on our platform. We invented it. (Somewhat cynically you could argue this is why Stripe spends a lot of time/resources on "big thinking" and kind of puffing themselves up into more than a "card processor". It's part of the sell.)
From their perspective, the fact that companies like Stripe and Square have been able to obtain unicorn valuations for card processing services means that there's money left on the table. Card processing was a basic commodity business before these guys. Somehow, Stripe et al have been able to convince a large swath of customers to accept 2.9% + $0.30.
Did you know that interchange on most debit cards is just 0.05% + $0.22?[1] That's massive margin.
Visa/MC is like, sorry Stripe, don't try to play our game on our platform. We invented it. (Somewhat cynically you could argue this is why Stripe spends a lot of time/resources on "big thinking" and kind of puffing themselves up into more than a "card processor". It's part of the sell.)
[1] https://www.burlingtonbankcard.com/interchange-plus-pricing/...