NateNate60

In America, €120 million could buy half of Congress.

I can't comment on the situation in other countries, but in the US, in the majority of cases, it's cheaper for businesses to take cash. In the US, the first few thousand dollars of cash deposits are typically free every month. Beyond that, pricing varies. My bank charges 0.35% on cash deposits, which is considered quite high, though it works out to only $42 per week in my example above. The credit union I have my personal accounts with charges 0.15%, which would be $18 a week.

The cost of labour has already been factored in and it still results in savings. The cost of security is comparatively negligible. A $300 safe is a one-off purchase that pays for itself in a fortnight.

A card which is subject to central bank regulations regarding the interchange fees which they are allowed to charge. According to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act 2011, the Federal Reserve has the power to limit debit card interchange fees for debit cards issued by large banks with over $10 billion in assets. A "regulated debit card" issued by a bank subject to the regulation is therefore tariffed at the maximum rate allowed by the regulation, which is 0.05% plus 22 cents.

If questioned by police they can say "I made it up for Internet clout. I didn't actually steal anything".

It is definitely not true that Discover interchange rates are significantly higher than Visa or Mastercard.

I've put below a list of the actual interchange rates for various personal Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cards types.

Debit:

• Visa Debit Regulated: 0.05% + 22¢
• Discover Debit Regulated: 0.05% + 22¢
• Mastercard Debit Regulated: 0.05% + 22¢
• Visa Debit: 0.8% + 15¢
• Mastercard Debit: 1.05% + 15¢
• Discover Debit: 1.1% + 16¢
• Visa Debit Prepaid: 1.15% + 15¢
• Mastercard Debit Prepaid: 1.15% + 15¢

Base credit tiers:

• Visa CPS Retail: 1.51% + 10¢
• Discover Consumer: 1.56% +10¢
• Mastercard Consumer: 1.65% + 10¢
• Mastercard Enhanced: 1.8% + 10¢

Rewards cards:

• Visa Rewards Traditional: 1.65% + 10¢
• Visa Rewards Signature: 1.65% + 10¢
• Discover Rewards: 1.71% + 10¢
• Discover Rewards Premium: 1.71% + 10¢
• Mastercard World: 1.9% + 10¢

Premium cards:

• Visa Rewards Signature Preferred: 2.1% + 10¢
• Discover Rewards Premium Plus: 2.15% + 10¢
• Mastercard World Elite: 2.3% + 10¢

You can plainly see that Discover tends to be more expensive than Visa but is cheaper than Mastercard. The only reason I could see that someone might refuse Discover is because Discover cards are all rewards credit cards that go into the higher tiers, whereas many Visa and Mastercard cards are debit cards which go into the lowest tier.

Amex isn't exclusive at all. Anyone can go apply for one and get one. It's not special at all

I literally cannot think of any places that don't take Discover.

Some American states (not mine) have banned surcharging for credit cards in response to consumer backlash. But what's not banned is marking up everything by 3% and then offering a 3% cash discount.

Surprisingly not in the US. If you make 100 sales a day of $20 each, then over a six-day week, you'd pay roughly $360 in credit card transaction fees (assuming 2.5% + 10¢ per transaction which is average). If you instead spent half an hour a day counting cash in the till and then half an hour at the end of the week to go to the bank, that's about $98 in labour cost (assuming a labour cost of $28 per hour, which is roughly $25 per hour in wages and $3 per hour in tax), so the savings are $262 per week, which is not insignificant.

When I buy from a small business that I want to support, I will use cash. When I'm buying anything from a large company, I will always use the fanciest credit cards in my wallet.

In the United States, credit card processing fees are more expensive for fancy rewards credit cards and obviously there's no fee for cash.

Everything is 4011. If I'm feeling generous, it might even be 94011!