Yesterdays Telegraaf contained some interesting news. ING has announced that it will sell POS-terminals and contracts to retailers which accept V-Pay, Maestro and PIN, all for the low price of todays PIN-transaction. Only one condition applies: it should be an EMV compliant terminal.
Well, this is exactly what retailers wished: clarity on future prices and terms and conditions. So one would think that would now be happy.... but are they...?
Well, no of course. The instant that a retailer gets the prices and desires he wants, he assumes that he has insufficiently bargained and that there is more left to bargain for. And he will immediately start negotiating for another round of fee cuts or what have you.
Likewise in the Dutch situation. In their reply to the ING announcement the retailers didn't spend any second complimenting ING on their vision, their fee structure or on fulfilling their previous demand. The next complaint in line is now that they find it intolerable that on the issuing side (which is completely not their concern) the PIN technology is based on magstripe and the other brands on EMV. In their view PIN should move to chip-based PIN as well....
To be continued.... I would say... until banks decide to stop participating in this retailer bargaining game.
