Financieele Dagblad reports this week that a local franchise of a supermarket chain (Super de Boer) is now accepting credit-cards, as the first in that segment of the market. This entrepreneur, Jan Pollemans in Roosendaal, states he got a good deal from Mastercard and Visa as they were eager to penetrate that segment of the market.
The move also illustrates that the regular wining of current retailers on the MSC for Point of Sale may be nothing more than playful acting for the public policy makers. The MSC for Super de Boer is apparently no barrier to accept credit-cards. So it is quite remarkable to notice that, with the lowest merchant service charge on earth of 5 eurocent per trx, the Dutch retailers still want a better deal from banks.
This is even more curious now that an open calculation (banks opened their books) showed that banks lose at least € 100 million on those transactions. Retailers always said they were willing to pay a fair price for POS-transactions if banks would just open their books. And now that the banks did completely open their books (retailers are a far cry from doing so, by the way), the Dutch retailer organisations keep on complaining and demanding lower fees.
I guess all is relative in this world...
