<story><title>Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-17/amazon-will-stop-accepting-visa-credit-cards-issued-in-the-u-k</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>input_sh</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s why: two debit cards, one for receiving money, one for spending money. Automated payment from the 1st one to the 2nd one once a month with a fixed amount you expect to spend in a month.&lt;p&gt;Nothing to pay off, you&amp;#x27;re spending your own money, can&amp;#x27;t be overcharged, can&amp;#x27;t go below zero, if someone leaks your spending card they can&amp;#x27;t touch the majority of your money, no scummy business practices.&lt;p&gt;Never owned a credit card, don&amp;#x27;t have the slightest wish to do so.</text></item><item><author>mrec</author><text>&amp;gt; most people buying stuff on Amazon would be using a debit card, folks only really use credit cards for large purchases&lt;p&gt;Huh? I&amp;#x27;m in the UK, have been an Amazon customer for over 20 years and have always used a credit card for everything. I didn&amp;#x27;t even know you &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; use a debit card, and can&amp;#x27;t see any reason you&amp;#x27;d want to. Paid off in full every month, better consumer protection, what&amp;#x27;s not to like?</text></item><item><author>em10fan</author><text>Quite the opposite in the UK, at least over the last 10 years or so.&lt;p&gt;99% of debit cards are Visa, and most people buying stuff on Amazon would be using a debit card, folks only really use credit cards for large purchases and things like travel, here.&lt;p&gt;Even when it comes to credit cards, I would say Mastercard has like a large chunk - like 80% in terms of institutions (but who knows in terms of actual customers), I would say.&lt;p&gt;Barclays and HSBC are the only majors that do Visa as far as I know. And Vanquis which is a junky one for people with bad credit.&lt;p&gt;The other majors like Lloyds, TSB, Bank Of Scotland, Halifax, Natwest, RBS, are all Mastercard. Same with most smaller banks like Virgin and CapitalOne, and store branded ones like Sainsburys&amp;#x2F;M&amp;amp;S&amp;#x2F;Tesco, too, as well as the remainder of the popular bad-credit cards like Ocean, and Aqua. Mastercard.</text></item><item><author>barrkel</author><text>I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be higher than Amex - there&amp;#x27;s something going on behind the scenes here.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think this is the end of it either, it smells like a negotiation threat. Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards. Amex has always been fairly niche because it&amp;#x27;s not accepted everywhere.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;1116580&amp;#x2F;payment-card-scheme-market-share-in-europe-by-country&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;1116580&amp;#x2F;payment-card-sch...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Visa was the largest card issuer in Ireland and the United Kingdom, with market shares of over 80 percent in both countries. (from 2019)&lt;p&gt;Reading further it does look like most Visa cards are debit cards and Mastercard has the lead in credit cards.&lt;p&gt;PS: Comment updated after some research.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rlpb</author><text>&amp;gt; can&amp;#x27;t be overcharged, can&amp;#x27;t go below zero&lt;p&gt;In the UK, it&amp;#x27;s really hard to get a bank account where they&amp;#x27;ll do that. Instead they&amp;#x27;ll pay it, call it an &amp;quot;unauthorised overdraft&amp;quot; and then charge you for that. This is their business model - it&amp;#x27;s how they make sufficient income to operate.&lt;p&gt;There are &amp;quot;basic bank accounts&amp;quot; which don&amp;#x27;t provide a credit facility, but these only exist because people with poor credit histories can&amp;#x27;t get bank accounts otherwise, and the regulator has threatened to enforce their availability otherwise. However since this means that there currently isn&amp;#x27;t any rule, the banks make it very difficult for an ordinary person (with good credit) to open a &amp;quot;basic bank account&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon to stop accepting UK Visa credit cards</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-17/amazon-will-stop-accepting-visa-credit-cards-issued-in-the-u-k</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>input_sh</author><text>Here&amp;#x27;s why: two debit cards, one for receiving money, one for spending money. Automated payment from the 1st one to the 2nd one once a month with a fixed amount you expect to spend in a month.&lt;p&gt;Nothing to pay off, you&amp;#x27;re spending your own money, can&amp;#x27;t be overcharged, can&amp;#x27;t go below zero, if someone leaks your spending card they can&amp;#x27;t touch the majority of your money, no scummy business practices.&lt;p&gt;Never owned a credit card, don&amp;#x27;t have the slightest wish to do so.</text></item><item><author>mrec</author><text>&amp;gt; most people buying stuff on Amazon would be using a debit card, folks only really use credit cards for large purchases&lt;p&gt;Huh? I&amp;#x27;m in the UK, have been an Amazon customer for over 20 years and have always used a credit card for everything. I didn&amp;#x27;t even know you &lt;i&gt;could&lt;/i&gt; use a debit card, and can&amp;#x27;t see any reason you&amp;#x27;d want to. Paid off in full every month, better consumer protection, what&amp;#x27;s not to like?</text></item><item><author>em10fan</author><text>Quite the opposite in the UK, at least over the last 10 years or so.&lt;p&gt;99% of debit cards are Visa, and most people buying stuff on Amazon would be using a debit card, folks only really use credit cards for large purchases and things like travel, here.&lt;p&gt;Even when it comes to credit cards, I would say Mastercard has like a large chunk - like 80% in terms of institutions (but who knows in terms of actual customers), I would say.&lt;p&gt;Barclays and HSBC are the only majors that do Visa as far as I know. And Vanquis which is a junky one for people with bad credit.&lt;p&gt;The other majors like Lloyds, TSB, Bank Of Scotland, Halifax, Natwest, RBS, are all Mastercard. Same with most smaller banks like Virgin and CapitalOne, and store branded ones like Sainsburys&amp;#x2F;M&amp;amp;S&amp;#x2F;Tesco, too, as well as the remainder of the popular bad-credit cards like Ocean, and Aqua. Mastercard.</text></item><item><author>barrkel</author><text>I cannot believe that Visa transaction overhead would be higher than Amex - there&amp;#x27;s something going on behind the scenes here.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think this is the end of it either, it smells like a negotiation threat. Visa have a larger market share overall (80%, including debit cards [1]) but Mastercard leads in credit cards. Amex has always been fairly niche because it&amp;#x27;s not accepted everywhere.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;1116580&amp;#x2F;payment-card-scheme-market-share-in-europe-by-country&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.statista.com&amp;#x2F;statistics&amp;#x2F;1116580&amp;#x2F;payment-card-sch...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Visa was the largest card issuer in Ireland and the United Kingdom, with market shares of over 80 percent in both countries. (from 2019)&lt;p&gt;Reading further it does look like most Visa cards are debit cards and Mastercard has the lead in credit cards.&lt;p&gt;PS: Comment updated after some research.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>aysfrm11</author><text>In Europe just using debit cards is perfectly viable in 99% of the cases, however when it comes to car rentals you are still in some locations forced to provide a &amp;#x27;real&amp;#x27; credit card.&lt;p&gt;I write &amp;#x27;real&amp;#x27; since most of the FinTechs like Revolut, N26 etc often issue debit cards that may fail in exactly that situation. It doesn&amp;#x27;t help if your account is flush with 10k USD and a car rental could easily block 2k for claims on your debit card, some will just not accept Revolut &amp;amp; co. Thus I am always forced to carry an emergency backup credit card from a major bank just to be on the safe side...&lt;p&gt;Very much looking forward to the day some other means of international payment (crypto?) will be generally accepted.</text></comment>