Mastercard to raise fees for UK customers buying from EU because of Brexit

Mickey666

Zellah said:

couriervanman said:

jaybeetoo said:

Mastercard is to raise fees for UK customers buying from the EU from October because of Brexit. It will charge 1.5 per cent of the transaction value for every online credit card payment from the UK to the EU, up from 0.3 per cent. For debit card payments the fee will increase from 0.2 per cent to 1.15 per cent, the Financial Times said.

Yet another benefit of Brexit.

Small price to pay.......we are now free of the EU 

Indeed. All worth it if it means blue passports and less Johnny Forinners as a result.

That's got to be a joke right?  There was never any need to change our passport colours in the first place - the burgundy colour has only ever been a recommendation.  Croatia has blue passports.  The very idea that anyone could care about the colour of their passport is ludicrous.

epm-84

London7766551 said:

dahj said:

London7766551 said:

"Because of Brexit" is a very deliberately charged political induced wording. What is the actual reason? If it is a result of the UK leaving the EU, what is the actual cause of the charge increase? does MasterCard have to pay more in transaction fees?

Right so it seems Mastercard will no longer apply an EU limit on charges that were introduced in 2015. I might remind people of the results of this regulation.

Jumping the gun
Ahead of the EU introducing interchange fee regulation later this year, Visa's implemented the new 0.2% cap on debit interchange fees from this month. 
But that means they'll now charge up to 50p for a debit card transaction instead of around 8p before.
That's because up until now debit charges tended to be a set fee, but if they're set as a percentage, they'll increase as the purchase value increases.
But for Visa, that's now more than six times the fees they charged before March.
Visa argue they could have charged even more if they wanted and the 50p maximum charge was their idea.
More worryingly Visa have chosen not to introduce the 0.3% cap on credit cards early - fees still range from 0.65% to 1.70%.

https://www.choose.co.uk/news/cap-interchange-fees-credit-debit-cards-eu.html

It remains to be seen if Mastercard will reduce other charges that were hiked previously as a result of this regulation. 

Strictly speaking it's to do with exiting the EEA not the EU.
Before what anyone says, that was not on any ballot paper and you can do trade deals whilst part of the EEA.

Does the EEA require free movement of people? I'd suggest this is why it was a no go.
Please, we had four years or it. The election of 2019 was clear. It doesn't matter if people agree with it or not.

No being in the EU doesn't require freedom of movement.  Countries like Norway decided that accepting freedom of movement is in their interests more than a higher financial price for being in the EEA.  Even Nigel Farage once said the UK could have a Norway style arrangement and he also accepted freedom of movement between western European countries was a good thing.

What was clear about the 2019 election?  57% of the UK population did not vote Conservative.  All that's clear is more people wanted a government led by Boris Johnson than a government led by Jeremy Corbyn.  Hard core Brexiteers falsely claiming a general election was all about Brexit is why this country is so messed up.  If people genuinely thought leaving the EU was more important than employment, education, transport, taxation, healthcare etc. then UKIP would would have won a general election a long time ago.  The fact that UKIP always did well in European elections but very badly in general elections suggests Brexit was always a long way down people's list of priorities, whatever the likes of Farage claim.

dazza.mk

epm-84 said:

No being in the EU doesn't require freedom of movement.  Countries like Norway decided that accepting freedom of movement is in their interests more than a higher financial price for being in the EEA.  

It does as laid out in the Maastricht Treaty, not sure I get your point on Norway, they have to accept free movement as a requirement for being in the EEA (via EFTA)

epm-84

dazza.mk said:

epm-84 said:

No being in the EU doesn't require freedom of movement.  Countries like Norway decided that accepting freedom of movement is in their interests more than a higher financial price for being in the EEA.  

It does as laid out in the Maastricht Treaty, not sure I get your point on Norway, they have to accept free movement as a requirement for being in the EEA (via EFTA)

Many people (including Farage) believed that it would have been possible to remain in the EEA without accepting freedom of movement but it would have costed more than being in the EEA and accepting freedom of movement.  Although, Farage did claim post-referendum that he never said anything about the UK having a Norway style deal, despite proof of him saying that in interviews.  It's almost like some people told lies to get gullible people to vote for Brexit. 

It was partly Cameron's fault though with not having an official plan for Brexit prior to the referendum and saying the government's view is we're better off in the EU so vote to agree with us or vote to disagree.  If a travel agent asked you "Would you like to go Italy this year? Yes/No" and if you choose no then they choose where you go, then you'd think they were mad. Then what would you do if Greece was your first choice and Italy was your second choice?  Saying no might mean you get your 1st choice or your 20th choice, voting yes would mean you don't get your 1st choice but guarantees you get to go to a place you'd like.

epm-84

Mickey666 said:

Zellah said:

couriervanman said:

jaybeetoo said:

Mastercard is to raise fees for UK customers buying from the EU from October because of Brexit. It will charge 1.5 per cent of the transaction value for every online credit card payment from the UK to the EU, up from 0.3 per cent. For debit card payments the fee will increase from 0.2 per cent to 1.15 per cent, the Financial Times said.

Yet another benefit of Brexit.

Small price to pay.......we are now free of the EU 

Indeed. All worth it if it means blue passports and less Johnny Forinners as a result.

That's got to be a joke right?  There was never any need to change our passport colours in the first place - the burgundy colour has only ever been a recommendation.  Croatia has blue passports.  The very idea that anyone could care about the colour of their passport is ludicrous.

Indeed.  I also think some people forget that blue does not appear a flag representing solely England, Wales or Northern Ireland.  It's one of three colours on the Union Jack with those 3 colours combined representing the UK.  If Scotland were to leave the UK it would make sense for the blue to be removed and for something from the Welsh flag to the added to the Union Jack, maybe the dragon, maybe the Welsh green to replace the Scottish blue?

The burgundy colour simplifies things at passport queues within the EEA, as staff can direct anyone holding a burgundy passport in their hand to the fast queues/eGates.  Once international travel is possible again UK border staff seeing a blue passport won't know whether it's American, Canadian, British, North Korean, Syrian, Venezuelan or what unless they look at it or ask the person whether or not they have a British passport.

Roger1

Sorry Roger, you are wrong......

https://www.efta.int/about-efta/european-free-trade-association

Thanks for the interesting link.

It's the EEA that the Swiss declined to join.  So they are members of neither the EU nor the EEA, but they are members of the 'free movement' Schengen agreement and have numerous bilateral agreements with the EU.

Zellah

Mickey666 said:

Zellah said:

couriervanman said:

jaybeetoo said:

Mastercard is to raise fees for UK customers buying from the EU from October because of Brexit. It will charge 1.5 per cent of the transaction value for every online credit card payment from the UK to the EU, up from 0.3 per cent. For debit card payments the fee will increase from 0.2 per cent to 1.15 per cent, the Financial Times said.

Yet another benefit of Brexit.

Small price to pay.......we are now free of the EU 

Indeed. All worth it if it means blue passports and less Johnny Forinners as a result.

That's got to be a joke right?  There was never any need to change our passport colours in the first place - the burgundy colour has only ever been a recommendation.  Croatia has blue passports.  The very idea that anyone could care about the colour of their passport is ludicrous.

I was being sarcastic mate 

phillw

London7766551 said:
All I did was raise concerns some people have about immigration. Yet you have called me ignorant and xenophobic. I live in London, I am gay, I am certainly not in an "ignorant, xenophobic little bubble". I work with immigrants everyday, my grandparent was an immigrant. Again you clearly have a complex because you cannot understand what I am saying to you. I do hope you don't have the same methods of thinking for your financials.

I'm not sure how living in London and being gay is relevant? Are you saying only straight people living outside of London can be prejudiced?

The rest of the argument sounds like "I can't be racist, some of my best friends are black".
https://www.niot.org/blog/some-my-best-friends-are-black-defense
Which is so overused it actually makes you look more guilty just by using it.

There are immigrants that are prejudiced against other immigrants, you can even be racist against your fellow countrymen.

Most people believe racism is bad, therefore they can't be racist. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367877920935135
Even the wokiest of the woke can make mistakes, but they generally feel bad afterwards and apologise and don't double down on them.

Thrugelmir

London7766551 said:

phillw said:

finalfantasist said:
but whether that is more important to them than the obvious desire for them to make Brexit a failure?  Not so sure on that.

It was obviously going to be a failure, nobody has to try to make it one.

 One example was today where there was an article who had to pay VAT on a pair of earrings from Greece........

The tax revenue collected goes to fund UK institutions such as the NHS. 

phillw

Thrugelmir said:
The tax revenue collected goes to fund UK institutions such as the NHS. 

Which is good, because the NHS funding just lost all the VAT on exports to the EU.
It would be pretty much a zero sum game, except UK consumers and businesses are worse off because of the cost of the extra red tape now that we've left the EU.