Realist, not conformist analysis of the latest financial, business and political news

Yes, The EU Is Run By Idiots – Why Do You Ask?

When the European Union started to go on a jihad against credit card fees there were those  issuing small parp squeaks of common sense. The credit and debit card networks cost money to operate. Thus, someone, somewhere, must be paying the costs of running those credit and debit card networks. The logical place for those costs to be allocated, the someones, is the people who use the network. The logical somewhere is at the point of use. Any other allocation is going to lead to an incidence problem. Either people unassociated with the networks will have to pick up the costs or the same people will but they’ll be higher having travelled by a roundabout route.

This was all said before the EU’s insistences and lo, so it has come to pass:

It was meant to be the end of the rip-off that cost consumers hundreds of millions of pounds a year. In January, all extra charges for using a credit or debit card to pay for goods and services were banned to prevent nasty surprises at the checkout. However, five months on, increases in the cost of transactions by Visa and Mastercard mean consumers now face the prospect of paying more for goods and services.

There hasn’t been an increase in costs. There’s just been a reallocation of them:

In 2015, the EU introduced rules to cap increasingly high interchange fees. It was on the back of these reforms that UK traders have been banned from charging customers a levy at the checkout.

But it has backfired. Visa and Mastercard, which dominate the market, have simply increased scheme fees, in some cases by up to 100%. And traders can get around the ban on surcharges by incorporating the extra processing costs in their retail prices. In short, it is the consumer who pays in the end.

Before the ban, customers could see the extra charge for using a card and had the option of choosing a cheaper payment method, whereas now everyone has to shoulder the cost, whether they use cash or card.

“It’s a classic example of the unintended consequences of regulation,” says James Daley, managing director of campaign group Fairer Finance. “All the regulator has done is squeeze one end of the balloon, and made the other end bigger.”

Yes, quite. And the warnings were given. Everyone now pays higher costs so that the richer among us – and it is the richer, the poor are more likely to be using cash – benefit. Which really isn’t one of those known aims of public policy, is it?

So, yes, the European Union is run by idiots. But then we already knew that too, given the existence of the euro. Thank God we’re leaving, eh?

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Pat
Pat
6 years ago

Unless the object was to get people to shift from untraceable cash to traceable card payments.

Quentin Vole
Quentin Vole
6 years ago

Similarly, the EU ban on additional charges for roaming with your mobile. Since there is a real cost associated with roaming, someone has to pay it. It’s ended up with (marginally) higher prices all round, meaning those who can’t afford to take frequent holidays (or travel abroad for work) subsidise those that can.

It’s worth noting that there was and is no shortage of contracts that don’t charge extra for roaming, even to non-EU countries. They do tend to be a bit more expensive than the cheapest PAYG.

Spike
Spike
6 years ago

With due respect to the Guardian, nothing has “backfired,” either. “There hasn’t been an increase in costs. There’s just been a reallocation of them.” — But there has been an increase in costs, because the world does not simply snap to fit EC regulations. The card issuers had to reprogram to accept transactions without imposing the fee, studies and meetings had to be held to determine the least painful way to recoup the costs, then that had to be implemented and publicized. Quality assurance involving lawyers had to be performed on all those steps to ensure they complied with EC… Read more »

jgh
jgh
6 years ago

Yes, but it would be our idiots.

I don’t care what decisions are made (well….), but I want *us* to be making the decisions.

BB01
BB01
6 years ago

Aren’t the idiots the people of the wise electorate who elect Buggins into office turn and turn again, clamour for the laws that tackle the rip-offs, then applaud excitedly as their foot is shot off?

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