Texts From Superheroes

Texts From Superheroes

Australia has announced plans to ban debit card surcharges that the country’s central bank estimates are costing consumers nearly 1 billion Australian dollars ($671m) a year. Australia’s centre-left government said on Tuesday that it would seek to ban the “unfair and excessive” charges from the start of 2026 subject to a review of card payments by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said his first priority was to ease the cost of living for households and the proposed ban would be “another step to protect Australians.”

Mae Anderson at AP, via NewsNation:

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Visa, alleging that the financial services behemoth uses its size and dominance to stifle competition in the debit card market, costing consumers and businesses billions of dollars.

The complaint filed Tuesday says San Francisco-based Visa penalizes merchants and banks who don’t use Visa’s own payment processing technology to process debit transactions, even though alternatives exist. Visa earns an incremental fee from every transaction processed on its network. According to the DOJ’s complaint, 60% of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s debit network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions. “We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement. “Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing – but the price of nearly everything.”

In a statement, Julie Rottenberg, Visa’s general counsel, said the lawsuit doesn’t take into account the “ever expanding universe of companies offering new ways to pay for goods and services.” “Today’s lawsuit ignores the reality that Visa is just one of many competitors in a debit space that is growing, with entrants who are thriving,” Rottenberg said. She added the lawsuit is “meritless” and the company will defend itself “vigorously.” The Biden administration has aggressively gone after U.S. companies that it says act like middlemen, such as Ticketmaster parent Live Nation and the real estate software company RealPage, accusing them of burdening Americans with nonsensical fees and anticompetitive behavior. The administration has also brought charges of monopolistic behavior against technology giants such as Apple and Google.

DOJ sues Visa in an antitrust lawsuit on the basis that the card issuer has de facto monopolized the debit and credit card markets.

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Woohoo! 🍾 🥳 🎉

It only took what felt like an eternity, which was really more like 5 weeks now that I check. But, those replacement debit cards finally arrived in the mail today!

Yeah, I would say that it took over 10 days. 😒 But, I'm relieved to see them. Especially since a very limited number of businesses even take cash here anymore, even without Plague Time factored in. And, without the Social Security number equivalent assigned? I don't yet have access to Swedish bank accounts, or BankID for non-card payments. (And so much more...)

Anyway, I've been needing to drag Mr. C along shopping to pay for stuff, and also get him to place a few online orders. Since who in Sweden needs PayPal, GPay, or other payment options, when there's BankID and (worst case) cards*? 😩

No sign of the replacement credit card so far, but I haven't used it in at least a year anyway. Should probably fix that, for the sake of my credit rating--besides just having it ready in case of emergencies!

But, SO RELIEVED to get those debit cards, which I do actually use on the regular. And I did already log into the HSBC app, and get them hopefully activated. *fingers crossed* Will need to refresh my emergency cash at an ATM, or do some other PIN transaction before I can use them contactless. But, with any luck? They should now work for everything else.

Now I should be able to pay for the bus trip tomorrow, once I get the card info updated in the Skånetrafiken app! Which is kinda how to pay on public transport here.

_________