Visa and Mastercard are American companies, and they essentially tax everybody by taking a percentage of purchase prices for themselves. Not exactly a small percentage either, 1.2% to 2.65%. Ever wonder why so many merchants say they don’t accept American Express? That’s because they charge quite a bit more to merchantes, 50% more than Visa or Mastercard. Anyway, we’re letting American companies tax us and we love them because we get rewards when we use cards. But it’s just a shell game because we pay more up front because businesses need to charge more to make up for payment processing charges. They get to sit in the middle and rake in the money.
Now the alternative in Canada is Interac. Interac charges a set amount per transcation. How much? 2 to 5.5 cents. Unless you’re going through Apple or Google Pay, and then it’s a percentage again.
Interac is also Canadian.
Want to stick it to Trump? Stop using credit cards (and Google Pay or Apple Pay) and switch to Interac. Want to make Canada better? Stop using credit cards and switch to Interac. Is it going to be inconvenient? Yes. Online shopping will be much harder but I have seen online Interac payments before and we can ask our favourite Canadian merchants to accept Interac online.
Many credit cards in North America have a cash back or loyalty points scheme. In cash back, you essentially get a cut of the network fee back as virtual value to pay off your statement. With points, you earn the points based on the amount spent, and can redeem them for things like travel or gift cards. Some merchant categories earn more as an incentive (e.g. 2% of purchase value or 10 points per dollar for groceries and monthly automatic bills, 1% or 5 points on everything else).
Edit: Oh and I should mention, some offer complementary car and travel insurance benefits, airport lounge access, electronic device insurance too. So it’s definitely compelling for a lot of people, since >90% of places don’t offer cash discounts or CC Fee, so people would essentially get or lose the benefits with no difference in price.
Well, we get none of that, which is why most cards used here are debit cards despite all being colloquially known as “kreditky”.