Businesses don't get to negotiate with Visa and Mastercard. They negotiate with ... | Hacker News

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		encoderer on Aug 8, 2012 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Jack Dorsey: Today Starbucks Signed up for Square Businesses don't get to negotiate with Visa and Mastercard. They negotiate with banks. And banks negotiate with large volume customers. That's why McDonald's can afford to take credit for a $1 ice cream cone without losing 33% of it to the card company. Square has a lot of options in the way they process transactions, and they have a very high volume (now more so than ever)

andyakb on Aug 8, 2012 [–]

...right, so why cant starbucks negotiate with banks, much like mcdonalds does?

notatoad on Aug 17, 2012 | [–]

because the parent is wrong, McDs doesn't negotiate with the banks either. they negotiate with a payment gateway provider. which is what Square is.

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