Retailers have traditionally looked askance at strategies that have the potential of disrupting consumers at the point of purchase. Aside from defaulting to PIN debit, when is the last time you experienced a retailer offering an incentive to use debit over credit for example?
“Tender steering will allow retailers to drive market conditions for payment products. If new mobile commerce products and services offer competitive schemes and payment methods (like PayPal and ACH) to consumers at retail stores, the fees supported by both retail banks and MasterCard/Visa may be forced lower by retailers leveraging tender steering capabilities.”
One of the unintended consequences of fighting over interchange fees is the disruption this causes in the market’s ability of its stakeholders to cooperate. As this article points out, that cooperation is more important than ever as new payment forms are being created today which will impact the POS tomorrow.