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0 pointsAmericanChopper5y ago0 comments

In the EU it’s illegal for a merchant to charge a different price based on payment method (iirc), but merchants are most certainly still charged transaction fees for card payments. SEPA transfers still incur fees too. There is a huge number of service providers involved in every single card payment, and that service infrastructure only exists because people pay to use it. It absolutely wouldn’t be strange for the 2-3% fee a merchant is charged for processing a transaction to be divided up between more than 10 service providers.

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mcv5y ago

> "In the EU it’s illegal for a merchant to charge a different price based on payment method"

I really don't think that's true; there are plenty of merchants who do still charge different prices based on payment method. But there are also many who voluntarily don't, because the actual cost is negligible and better than the alternatives. Regular bank transfers of various kinds between consumers, including iDeal internet payments, as far as I can tell, have no fees at all. Cash withdrawals across different currencies may incur fees, but I've never seen fees in regular Euro cash withdrawals.

Nobody here is charging 2-3% except when credit cards are involved.

AmericanChopperOP5y ago

Turns out it is true.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/pri...

> Traders in the EU are not allowed to charge you extra for using your credit or debit card.

Regarding this:

> Nobody here is charging 2-3% except when credit cards are involved.

The service provider that provides the payment terminals merchants use will be charging the merchants between 1-2%, often with a per transaction fee on top of that. I’m not 100% sure how service providers in the EU bundle things, but intercharge fees are usually charged on top of that again. Even though the EU caps interchange fees, merchants will very easily be incurring above 2% in fees even for non-credit card transactions. The EU’s cap on interchange fees for card not present transactions is barely below standard market rates, so EU merchants will be paying about the same as everybody else for those.

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