Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Tsunami Victims: VISA/MC waive transaction fees?

Tsunami Victims: How to Help (washingtonpost.com)

From a WaPo transcript about aiding Tsunami victims:
Los Angeles, Calif. With so many people making spur-of-the-moment donations, I bet that Visa and Mastercard are making a fortune from the fees they charge. Are they going to waive these fees? They should!

Hmmm. This is an interesting question, one that didn't occur to me. The administrative costs to VISA/MC and AMEX on these types of donations is presumably quite small. It would be good corporate policy for them to donate their fees.

In fact it probably wouldn't be that hard for them to do so. If Americans donate $200 million via credit cards to this cause, fees are less than $5 million. I suspect AMEX/VISA/MC can manage that donation.

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