> More than 60% of debit transactions in the U.S. run over Visa rails, helping it charge more than $7 billion annually in processing fees, according to the DOJ complaint.
60% seems pretty well short of monopoly. Also, if you factor in that cash is an option, and the significant inroads being made by options like Square and Venmo, Visa doesn't actually even have a majority in the market.
I'm skeptical of this action overall. I love competition as much as the next guy, but Visa, Mastercard, and Discover's primary value they provide is fraud detection and prevention. There are enormous economies of scale at play, and it's hard to believe that breaking up the big guys into dozens of independent, fly-by-wire cut-rate providers is in the public's best interests long term. That is, unless the federal government wants to come in and actually pursue small-time fraud.
60% seems pretty well short of monopoly. Also, if you factor in that cash is an option, and the significant inroads being made by options like Square and Venmo, Visa doesn't actually even have a majority in the market.
I'm skeptical of this action overall. I love competition as much as the next guy, but Visa, Mastercard, and Discover's primary value they provide is fraud detection and prevention. There are enormous economies of scale at play, and it's hard to believe that breaking up the big guys into dozens of independent, fly-by-wire cut-rate providers is in the public's best interests long term. That is, unless the federal government wants to come in and actually pursue small-time fraud.