Someone in the food chain does take less in some EU countries. Not all.
The commissions are capped by law in some parts, but not others.
As a small sample, in RO i think a large store chain pays like 0.5%. The consequence is credit card reward programs are either non existent or something like 0.1% cashback. The other consequence is you can pay by card almost anywhere.
On the other hand I've been to NL and small stores simply did not take Visa/MC because it was too expensive for them. Guessing the visa/mc charges weren't capped there.
Not sure if you actually been to RO but every small shop has 3-4 payment terminals, each bank branded, and based on the card they use a different terminal thus ensuring minimal charge or even 0.
In DE or NL, you operate via an intermediary ( like payone, etc ) and a single terminal. Maybe here comes the difference.
PS. Larger shops/markets ( like kaufland, carrefour, etc ) have also just one, but I guess they negociate the fee.
They made it compulsory by law to accept cards for B2C if you sold more than like 15k eur/month. But I think you were already in DE.
I think that law also cames with caps on card charges. Or at least there was so much competition between banks for the new market that purchase charges dropped on their own.
Culturally, though, small retailers may still believe that credit card fees are higher than they actually are.
They may be concerned about refund and chargeback processes.
Or, their gateway either cannot offer credit cards on their POS terminals for technical or compliance reasons, or the retailer simply hasn’t enabled the payment methods.
It’s not regulation in NL that blocks small retailers from taking V or MC.
The commissions are capped by law in some parts, but not others.
As a small sample, in RO i think a large store chain pays like 0.5%. The consequence is credit card reward programs are either non existent or something like 0.1% cashback. The other consequence is you can pay by card almost anywhere.
On the other hand I've been to NL and small stores simply did not take Visa/MC because it was too expensive for them. Guessing the visa/mc charges weren't capped there.