Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday
@futzle
> 4.6% ? No, sorry, get a better platform

Agreed, but ... is there one? I've been watching the online payments space since the turn of the century, so I've seen a lot of experiments come and go (BuskPay, eGold). I've seen the DotCom bubble and the crypto bubble come and go.

In that time, the digitised credit/debit card infrastructure become - and stayed - the de facto standard for digital payments. A classic example of what Giblin and Doctorow call "chokepoint capitalism".
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday

Almost all of the online payment providers you interact with is backed by one of a handful of giant payment processors (eg PayPal and Stripe, or in China, AliPay and WeChatPay). That are essentially an API between you and the credit card company your card belongs to. That are, in turn. basically APIs between you and the company that hosts your bank accounts.

In other words, companies are squeezing on chokepoints between you and your bank.

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#payments#OnlinePayments#ChokePointCapitalism
Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday

I think we can do A2A payments online. Ironically, by reusing a feature used now to tie payments to a payment processing duopoly; EFTPOS-as-an-app using QRcode scanning. If this could be done as a protocol, not a platform, it could make all the chokepoint payment processors optional. Which would create a big incentive for them to be of service to payers, rather than vice-versa.

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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday

In China, vendors display a QRcode for their WeChat Pay account, and one for their AliPay account. Customers scan a QRcode with their phone, which brings up the appropriate app. Set up in advance with an authorisation to pay from, and pay into, a bank account.

The app displays the payment amount and a keypad, where they enter their PIN. Once the payment is processed, the vendors phone can notify them. Done. No special EFTPOST terminal and dedicated net connection required.

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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday

Now, imagine the UX is more or less the same for you as the customer, but scanning the QRcode doesn't open a WeChat or AliPay app (or a Goggle Pay or Apple Pay app).

Instead, you use a generic internet banking app. Maybe you trust the one your bank supplies, maybe you prefer a third-party one. But either way it's authorised - using a secure, standardised method - to pay from and pay into your bank account.

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Strypey
@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz  ·  activity timestamp yesterday

Now, we want any financial entity we trust to hold our funds to be a full peer in this system. Rather than having to go through a chokepoint of payment processors. Like any bank card used to be accepted (more of less) in any ATM, rather than having to go to one that works with your bank.

But it's not going to work to have vendors displaying a separate QRcode for every bank a customer might want to pay with. So what do we do?

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