The Debit-Card Rebellion

I prefer a debit card to a credit card. I like seeing what I actually have in my accounts without having to worry about future payments for past purchases. I also like that the balance goes down instead of up when money is spent. The way credit cards display the balance feels like a physiological trick, and I’m sure it’s intentional.

I do still have one credit card to maintain my credit score, just because I ran into several annoying situations early in life when I didn’t have a credit history at all. I use it for stuff I have on auto-pay, and the bill gets auto-paid, so I never have to look at it or think about it, so I can avoid most of their attempted manipulation.

In my economy (AU) the premise of debit cards were both "not credit" (and therefore at the time, able to be used to buy food because a local rule restricted credit card use in the supermarkets) and "break the monopoly" because a different EFT model was being promoted. Australia was a regulated banking market with 4 majors, under regulation over market dominance, and a larger number of credit unions and minor state banks. Most of this landscape has changed somewhat, but the registration burdens to "be" a bank remain a point of contention in the fintech sector. (Also, do not allow american experiences with credit unions and small town banks and "it's a wonderful life" to dominate your thinking, the cooperative bank movement is worldwide, and it isn't defined by the bizarre "you're not from round heeeer" cheque behaviours of US credit unions)

The banks of course responded, to preserve income. They all offer both. Debit cards now incur costs, just as credit cards do, distinct from the interest component. Mechanisms like frequent flyer points also are used to provide distinctions. You are bombarded with "which button to push" suggestions from merchants, from banks, from consumer advocacy groups.

All electronic cash movement methods incur questions about taxation (of money flows, and of income streams which in cash avoid the marker) and cost recovery and price (ie, banking system profit). It would be reasonably clear to anyone that even taking sunk costs and ongoings into account, there is no way a payment transaction as pure bytes demands any fee higher than 0.00000000 class digits. They are charged, as a profit line, not as hypothicated strict cost recovery. Please do not allow banking claims to the contrary to sway your mind on the dis-join between transaction price, and true cost of the network. -If it's not abundantly clear to you, ask a shopkeeper or market trader how much they pay for the terminal, and how it affects the price they charge you.

The same network delivers a videostream of GB duration to you bundled into your monthly. IP packets do not weigh more because they're about money. TLS does not cost more because it's protecting money, even if the Bank has PCI registration and compliance costs. The secure terminal the merchant uses is a commodity device no more expensive than a cell phone, which it often is.

Were this not true, 3rd party merchant companies like stripe would not exist. Stripe exists because of the HUGE margin between true cost of electronic funds movement, and the price we appear willing to pay as consumers.

"Credit Score" is a quite bizarre concept. Like Moodys, its not really what it looks like, and it should be more highly regulated too. Chosing not to have a CC should not reduce your credit score, any more than holding debt like student loans or a mortgage. Why does looking up your credit score negatively impact your credit score?

Are we heading back to a world where signatures on the back of a company debt instrument determine the yield?