Debit cards? The other option is to use a Credit Card but pay off at the end of the month. Why is that so difficult? That’s literally like a Debit card except for the additional “buffer” of safety and security from your bank account.
That's true, I am not too familiar with the finance system, how come a debit card needs a middle man such as VISA? They help with the transaction between two banks?
The situation is that there is a network called Visa Debit that some banks use for their network for debit transactions. It may seem new, but it evidently dates back as far as 1982.
I'm in Canada. With one exception, no bank client card I have had (which were all usable for debit) had any Visa logo on it. That includes current ones.
TD is one of the banks that offer Visa Debit. This TD client card is also Interac-branded, so I'm guessing that the card will use the Interac network for domestic transactions, and in that case its Visa Debit personality does not come into play.
Those are not the only two networks for debit/ATM in Canada. There is also "The Exchange":
(used by a lot of smaller banks and credit unions).
The Canadian Credit Union Association also runs an ATM network called AccuLink.
It's important to know which network your card uses if you want "ding free" transactions. E.g a "The Exchange" card can be used at an "Interac" ATM, but there will be a fee.
That doesn't make it any less of a duopoly. The whole point of the article is that visa/mc have too much power and there is a lot of systemic risk by having only two competitors in this industry in particular.
Even if they aren't extending credit they're still facilitating the transaction - it's not like the visa sticker is on there for marketing purposes
That's what I was talking about - even if they aren't charging fees, they're involved.
There's plenty of cases in technology where "but we don't do anything with your data!" is not a good enough excuse. Many of us still argue for decentralization or federation or user controlled data, etc. Similar concerns I have for visa.
