Shops that refuse credit cards

guesswho2000

ariba10 wrote: »

The Aqua Credit card pays users 3% of their spending back to them.

It follows that they must charge retailers more than 3%.

Not necessarily. Aqua are a sub prime lender, so they'll be banking on the fact a percentage of their customers will miss/be late with payments (£12 fee) or revolve the balance (ridiculous interest rate), thereby offsetting the 3% cashback, bearing in mind an over limit, late or missed payment means you forfeit all cashback too.

Also it's a MasterCard, I could understand it maybe being high if it was an Amex (and isn't the interchange percentage set by the card processing company, not the issuer, anyway?).

JakeGreen

ariba10 wrote: »

The Aqua Credit card pays users 3% of their spending back to them.

It follows that they must charge retailers more than 3%.

That's not quite true.

What about cards offering 5% or 6% cashback for the first 3 months?

AMEX are known for charging high merchant transaction fees at around 4%.

Mastercard and Visa are around 2.5%, and that is reduced further for the big supermarkets and whoever else has enough turnover to allow them to bargain down the fees.

The card companies get a small cut for EVERY transaction someone makes on one of their cards. In the case of the Aqua card, the cashback is capped at £100 per year, so they'll get money from people who continue to use the card for the rest of the year once the limit is reached and for people who go over their credit limit or don't pay in full each month.

Hominu

vikingaero wrote: »

for a small retailer the costs of card processing are prohibitive. There is the rental of the machine, extra phone line/broadband, paper (£8.99+vat for 16 tiny rolls in Booker last time I looked), credit card % fees, debit card fees, monthly account fee etc.

Our local news agent accepts debit and credit cards, but they don't have machine rental, phone line, broadband, paper (that they don't purchase for the till anyway) or monthly account fee.

They have a mobile phone which they had anyway with data connection that came with the contract, and a small box which is connected via wireless to the phone.

It costs about 50p extra to process a transaction of £20. They can get it for less if they signed up to a montly payment plan, but they find PAYG more flexible.

iAMaLONDONER

smokey_dave wrote: »

Some shops refuse to accept credit cards.

I never use my debit card in these shops and I ALWAYS pay cash. This is because I believe that it costs these firms to pay cash into their banks.

If this is right the more people that pay cash might get them to allow the use of credit cards.

The newsagent in Brixton tube station charges 60p for a card transaction! (They might have raised it since!)

yangptangkipperbang

zerog wrote: »

Now they just need to allow cashback with credit cards, and treat it as a purchase. I'd be happy to take £5000 off their hands every so often...

I daresay they would be quite happy to do that - say for 2% commission..............:rotfl::rotfl: