It would be yes, and it is Robbery In Plain Sight

This won't do... We really need to push Bitcoin POS even more.


Source translated to english.

http://translate.google.dk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dr.dk%2FNyheder%2FIndland%2F2012%2F10%2F21%2F234124.htm%3Frss%3Dtrue

Do you have a  link for that? It'd be interesting to know the back story here. I couldn't find any references to such a fee with a few quick searches.

Ive heard that Visa & Mastercard have 97% market share of the european card payments market, which essentially amounts to US tax of 3% on europeans in europe, on every penny we spend!  

Bitcoin will free us all from this tyranny!

It's true that some issuers are beginning to produce plastic with Chip+PIN (EMV) capability. However, to take advantage of the security, you need acceptance locations that are EMV-capable.

It will be years before the US catches up to Europe with EMV. The US was initially terminal-ized as an "online-only" mode where terminals always connect up to the server to get an authorization. Back in the day, most of the EU was "offline" mode where the balance counter inside the plastic itself would decrement each time you made a purchase until it finally went "online" at some point (usually at an ATM) to synchronize the balance; hence the PIN challenge was necessary to prove that you were the authorized cardholder, since if the card was stolen and "STATUSED" (marked as stolen) the offline terminals would have no way of knowing.

Anyway EMV is much more secure from a consumer perspective, but penalizing people who don't use EMV is nuts. Plus, us poor sobs in the USA are all carrying magstripe-only cards and it will majorly suck when we travel to the EU trying to use our cards. It's come a long way, though. I remember less than 10 years ago in Denmark my magstripe didn't work anywhere except ATMs even though most payment network rules require you to accept magstripe as a fallback.

Thanks for that information. You obviously are a lot more knowledgeable than me on this. But here in Ireland, we had our own domestically owned card payment system called "Laser". Merchants paid a flat €0.15 per swipe.

In 2011 all the irish banks dumped Laser and switched to either Visa or Mastercard. Now merchants pay 3% of the sale.

I find it hard to understand how the card issuer was able to charge only €0.15 per swipe on the irish system, but now charges 1.95% on the american system, according to the document you linked to.

Yes, thats probably it. The issuing banks saw an opportunity to make more profits by switching. All the banks here are broke since the property bubble popped and they are desperately trying to find new revenue streams. In addition to the 3% most banks are now starting to charge €0.20 per card swipe, to the purchaser, as well!

Merchants were complaining but then they just accepted it because theres nothing they can do.

The world needs bitcoin so badly.

We're always told to cover up the keypad as we key in our PINs.


Hear, hear.

"Screw banks, use Bitcoin instead!"

At least we still have our "Dankort" which I assume are immune to this issue?

That is untill they manage to kill the "Dankort" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dankort

Those from the U.S. who frequently travel abroad avoid the hassle of trying to swipe by getting a chip n pin (or chip n signature) from an issuer that offers them.

 - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credit-card-programs/1304271-usa-emv-cards-available-today-chip-pin-chip-signature.html
 - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ani-u3tGk5hedGRvcE1ELVg5UmlGZk01SHZvTUMxdUE#gid=0



And they probably won't add it until they are forced to.  

Which makes David Birch's tweet from this morning timely:

- https://twitter.com/dgwbirch/status/260409853506359297

As is another of his:

- https://twitter.com/dgwbirch/status/260424195723382785