The Threat to Your Data? Visa Wins the Prize
Starting Oct. 17, Visa began hitting Main Street businesses that won’t give it “comprehensive” data on key transactions with extra swipe fees — read it here.
- According to the article, the CEO of Paybright said, “There are going to be merchants that are completely blindsided and shocked by what happens.”
- And “It’s ten, maybe hundreds of thousands of merchants that are going to see increased rates.”
- Merchants that “fail to provide the required data” to Visa will be considered “non-verified” and will be hit with higher fees.
Why does Visa want enhanced individual transaction data?
- They don’t need it to make credit card payments work (and haven’t insisted on it before).
- They don’t have any direct relationship with cardholders.
- Here is what Visa’s chief data officer says:
- “Our goal is to ensure everyone across Visa can access data and analytics to harness the power of AI as it continues to evolve.”
- “As chief data officer, I am committed to making the most of our data assets.”
Do you feel better now? We don’t.
- Visa is strong-arming merchants to get transaction data.
- It has the power to do this because it has organized banks that issue credit cards into a cartel structure that acts and prices together — even though banks should be competing with each other.
- Now they want to use that data to make themselves even more powerful.
- Congress needs to do something to check Visa’s power, before it’s too late.
COMPETITION IS BETTER FOR EVERYONE
IT'S TIME TO PASS THE CREDIT CARD COMPETITION ACT