sksk

For those wondering why are they charging per developer etc. This case study helped me understand what they actually are selling: https://www.remobjects.com/elements/casestudies/curacaoweath...

Their landing page and generally content on their page is terrible but maybe nobody stumbles on their site randomly looking for this. People are reacting to their pricing after seeing the title but I dont think that's what they are selling...

Thank you. That makes sense. I totally agree, Excel is a nightmare to debug.

I am curious about your comment on 100-1000x fewer formulas. Is there a simpler example you can show how your product will do it relative to Excel? When I read your comment, I was thinking, SUM in Excel operates over many cells. You can have Arrays, etc. in Excel. So I am not sure how formulas work in your product that is fundamentally different. Is this like a function that I can define and call that function so it is easier?

I am not so sure. With normal order, if I want to get to page 63 out of 100 pages, I will randomly pick the middle and scan linearly until I hit 63.

With this one, I know the last page is around 50 in the normal order. So I will just invert the stack and scan linearly for 63 from the bottom.

I am not a professional developer (never gotten paid to write software) but now do some prototyping code in Haskell so real engineers can pick it up from me later.

For me, Haskell has been a huge productivity booster. It forces me to write good code and 90% of mistakes that I normally make are all caught at compile time. I use servant for creating my API server and it is pleasure to use (being able to create APIs declaratively is very easy for me to understand as a non professional). I recently had to write some front-end code in JavaScript and I noticed how simple mistakes can take 1/2 hour to debug (you pass in an array of objects instead of an object and you will wonder why `for (k in obj)` logic is not working.

I refactor huge parts of my code - can gut a particular API endpoint response and rewrite it without worrying about introducing more bugs. This allows me to start writing code without a lot of planning and refactor as I go instead of spending a lot of time upfront thinking through the implications.

Using Hoogle or Hayoo to search for functions based on types is just simply awesome. If you want a function that returns the index of a list that satisfies a predicate, you don't need to come up with search words instead you just look for it based on the types like so: http://hayoo.fh-wedel.de/?query=%28a+-%3E+Bool%29+-%3E+[a]+-.... This does not mean you can solve all problems this way but it is very quick to get easy answers than Googling or putting it on SO.

Most developers write their APIs and need to spend more time documenting it. With servant I just derive documentation directly from the types so my documentation moves in lock step with my code.

That said, using Haskell has its challenges (especially as a beginner).

* Compile-refresh cycle is frustrating. With Python or Go, you make a change and refresh the page, it is there. With Haskell, the 30s wait can become painful. My code is organized into modules but it is hard to avoid dependency related compile issues -- I tend to put most of my data records (mostly related by business logic) in a module and if you add anything to this module, you will end up recompiling everything that depends on it (which is most of the code). I am sure a pro-Haskeller would do it differently but whatever suggestions available online is not steering me in the right direction.

* Starting out with a fresh framework is not trivial for a beginner. servant is really nice because it came with very good documentation and also a tutorial by someone on how to use it with wai (http server) and persistent (an ORM). Without it, I would not have been able to get to where I am now.

* Not all libraries are created equal -- some of the common use cases are well documented or has enough documentation that you will be ok. But once you venture beyond common use cases, trying to use a library is not easy. Most of the time, types help and being able to test it in the REPL is nice but it can only take you so far. I recently looked at a library for creating a MIME string but got lost in some undocumented library.

* Haskell's community is great. You will always find someone to help you. However, as the author was saying, you want to get some work done and you cannot wait 2 days for an answer on Reddit or SO. IRC is great for specific libraries (say servant or Yesod) but general #haskell can be daunting -- 90% of the people seem to be discussing Lenses or Free Monads and your stupid type error is not going to get any attention.

* Easy parts of Haskell are very easy to pickup and the hard parts seem impossible to fully comprehend (I will think I understand Monad Transformers and will try to implement some logic but will get stuck in type check hell and quickly give up).

Btw, I did not know about fieldLabelModifier until now and it will cut down a lot of boiler plate. That said, I cannot wait for GHC 8 and its Duplicate Record Fields! Records are really annoying for writing business logic driven API servers.

Interesting. If they accept foreign passports, it will be amazing if we can relax the regulation in the US along the same lines with a specific carve out that information cannot be used to enforce immigration policy violations. Then most undocumented works can probably get a bank account without a SSN and not worry they will get deported -- convincing undocumented immigrants that this is safe is going to a tough battle though.

I did not know about the basic bank account in the UK. What do you need to apply for a bank account? Do you need to provide some form of govt. ID to get it or can you get it any piece of item in a retail store?

In the US a good portion of the unbanked also happens to be undocumented immigrants. There is also the problem of AML/KYC process in the US which has been stricter in the US than in the UK (as you could tell from the UK headquartered banks getting fined by US Regulators -- not saying it is better though) and as a consequence the cost of compliance goes up for the bank. They pass on these costs to the consumer but with an upsell mentality that you had mentioned (increased min balance requirement removes fees, for e.g.) -- this leads to the upper middle class paying nothing and the poor and middle class paying bulk of the fees.

The economist had a very nice article about the cost of being poor: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21663262-why-low.... This is a very difficult problem and will be hard to address properly without adequate support from the govt. For example, the govt. could provide easier access to banking license for those who want to serve low-income customers and allow for innovative solutions in this space.

> Why is a rich person with no debt and huge amount of assets more of a risk than an undischarged bankrupt?

Good point and as mseebach points out absence of information is a signal and these type of no-debt cases are very rare that is hard to build a model around.

At our start-up SimplyCredit, we look at things holistically, not just your credit score and that should help with your concern. However, it is harder to do this effectively without proper data at scale. I wish the govt. made different types of data about the borrower available to lenders (with permission from the borrower of course) -- for example, it will be nice to know electronically someone paid for mortgage outright or their income statements, etc. Right now people attempting to use this information have to resort to approaches that Mint uses (scraping, partnership with banks to not block them, etc.).

That said, credit scores actually work in a manner similar to what you suggest. Credit scores are 'centered' around a value and good things get you +score1 and bad things get you -score2, bad things you didn't do +score3, etc. It is not exactly what you suggest as no-hits don't automatically get neutral rating -- most case those apps will get rejected.

Agreed. You are probably right about the outcome. It is easy to just add an interaction of nominal score group (high, med, low) vs. mismatch/match and see if there is an effect.

At our startup we get depersonalized credit data but we don't have a nice panel like the Fed :) so cannot really do that analysis on our end. I would be nice if they released this data publicly -- once it is setup for modeling (with just a few variables), it is so hard to re-identify so the risk of privacy invasion is low. I doubt that will happen though.

That's a good question and I was thinking about the same when I read the paper. I have never investigated this aspect of credit scores in my career so don't really know the answer. My guess is people who have similar score, even if it is bad, probably tolerate each other more than when they have very different styles. I am not sure if the paper looks at this deeply (they seem to only compare differentials and stdev at formation).

It depends on what you mean by 'no debt'. If you mean, they have never ever had a loan then they will most likely not even have a score or a poor one (they will be categorized as a 'no hit' or 'thin file'). Don't have stats top of my head for this group but my hunch is no-hit / thin-file are people with poor access to credit and not many actively avoid debt altogether.

If you mean, they had debt but they paid it all off, then they will still get a lot of credit for it. Credit scores look at your 'oldest tradeline' and maintaining good credit over many years is viewed favorably. Their scores will not be as high as someone who had recent credit transaction and managing it well (all else being equal), however, it will still be very good. If you look at the FICO Score, anything above a 760 or 780 is usually just bragging rights -- it hardly changes your rates on mortgages or loans.

While your statement about payment promptness is correct, people with good scores tend to save more than others (scores do not use savings or income or wealth into account, however).

Credit scores only penalize you when you don't have any credit but most of these good score folks tend to have (or had) a mortgage or have had auto loans, etc. Just because they are not actively opening new accounts does not mean they will be penalized -- credit scores look at pretty much everything in your report and they get credit for their historical good behavior.

Another thing to consider is that good credit scores leads to a positive cycle: you don't pay high interest rates on your loans and the extra money saved here allows you to pay down obligations faster, which in turn allows you to save more in the long run.

This is a very interesting study. Anyone who has worked in the consumer credit industry will know that credit scores are correlated with a whole bunch of things -- your standard credit default to insurance claims to employment. Anytime you need to identify 'responsible' individuals, credit scores can act as a pretty good proxy although using credit scores is legally kosher only in certain situations.

I think their trustworthiness hypothesis is probably weaker than other parts of their analysis. I have my own hypothesis based on my experience working in this industry: Staying in a committed relationship may not be really about 'responsible' behavior but could be due to similarity of financial management styles. Most marriage counselors talk about 'sorting out your finances' before getting married; credit scores are essentially capturing that issue -- people who have very good credit scores tend to be savers (although credit scores do not use income or wealth into account) and ones who have poor scores tend to be financially poor and for the large part spend more than they can afford. Also people with good scores tend to be manage finances in a particular way -- pay bills early, monitor balances regularly, etc. -- while the ones with poor credit scores do not usually pay much attention to finances and miss payments frequently.

When you have two people with two different styles of managing money, it can lead to a strained relationship and subsequently lead to separation.

> Yup, but so too do credit scores in general. If Harry was unlucky, lost his job and missed a few credit-card payments, then his credit card will suffer regardless of whether he is now actually likely to default

While it is true but that's completely under Harry's control. Consumer unsecured credit is a volume game so it is not going to be possible to underwrite based on personal history. So you need to look at the historical behavior of similar people and the data will show he has a higher risk of default.

That said, Harry can definitely improve this situation by getting a secured credit card from a credit union and build his credit back up. However, if he gets dinged for his friend, he has no way out of it without unfriending everyone from his prior life on Facebook.

Lending can be more personal but the economics of unsecured lending makes this challenging. Credit unions get closest to this but the smaller ones who can provide such a service are struggling.

I understand FCRA and ECOA very well and it is very unlikely we are going to get a different interpretation of these regs just because Facebook wants to get into the loan origination game. I see a number of issues:

1. Reason Codes: FCRA reason codes that the lender has to generate will be a PR nightmare if they decline the loan application based on Facebook data -- imagine a consumer getting a rejection reason as 'Your fiends have poor credit rating so we don't want to give you credit'.

2. Discrimination / Disparate impact: Most people who are poor also have poor friends and this type of analysis will lead to disparate impact that the article talks about and there is no way around it -- even if they get a slightly different interpretation of FCRA they are not going to solve disparity easily.

3. CRA Regulation around data quality: Credit Reporting Agencies (CRA) has specific mandates around providing accurate information about the the borrower. If a borrower thinks it is wrong, they can request the CRA to fix it through a dispute process -- this is a very time-intensive, expensive process for a CRA. I doubt Facebook would want to build a process for disputes and the disputes are going to be worse -- before I will say, I paid my credit card on time and you got it wrong to the credit bureau. Now I may say, I don't think my friend's rating is low and Facebook has to due diligence before they can claim it is correct.

I can see a few ways they might go about this:

1. Second shot at approval as opposed to decline: A lender may reject an application and may choose to use Facebook data to give the borrower a second chance. This is better for the borrower and the regulators may be ok with this type of approach. Although they need to be careful with banks not suddenly changing their FICO Score cut off to something very high so they can fall back on this.

2. Only make it available internationally: not all countries have such strong protections around consumer credit data. Also, many countries don't have a robust credit bureau and this may actually help consumers.

3. Focus on alternative payday lending: CFPB is keen on opening up newer sources of data for certain segments that do not get any credit today. They may be open to this approach if fb can show that it will allow lenders to provide credit to people who they wouldn't have before.

I have strong views about FCRA / ECOA and I feel most of the provisions in there are actually beneficial to the consumers. Even though my startup SimplyCredit is in the fintech space and would greatly benefit from relaxed regulation, I do think it is good to have strong consumer protection and that's why we don't use anything outside of what will be considered as 'payment behavior / financial management'.

I cringe every time a new fintech company claims they monitor how fast you can type or analyze your github profile to give you credit -- either they say these things for marketing but really using it for underwriting or actually using it and breaking many provisions of FCRA. The last thing I want to do is decline a person with disability for typing slowly -- especially when the focus is to really help consumers and not to showoff your power to analyze such realtime data!

Instead of data sources like Facebook, I would welcome a cleaner source of data with verified income and employment.

While I agree that this is annoying, but how is this different from pay walls that vary from 1-2 sentences to blurred out sentences?

And what about sites that show content when the referrer is Google but show paywall otherwise?

One more thing. 30 days is not the right point as payments are usually due 28 days after the statement is issued and most people (people who carry a balance) pay closer to the end -- all this while things are getting compounded. So your 0.53/mth will be more like 0.9/mth in practice.

As you could this gets into a lot of nuances on how people use credit cards today. We attempted to keep things simple and it lead to a totally different issue, which you raised. We will try to revise it to make it more like a what a user will do over the life of their debt and compare. Again, financial delta for each user is not the issue but rather the 'fairness' of this whole thing -- how does compounding really benefit the consumer?

Yup, your example will amount to $.53 * 12 = ~$6 / year (assuming no deferral). Typically people end up staying in debt for a few years (4-6 years) because of the way the banks structure payments. So you may conclude, what the heck, $25 more over 4 years, why do I need to care? But you need to look at the system as a whole to address this problem. Finance is a very low return game (as % of assets) so people try to make $1-2 by charging this or that and in grand total adds up to billions. That's why nobody in the industry will switch to Simple Interest. I don't think our value prop is just saving $6/year (assuming interest rate is the same) -- it is really about doing the right thing for the consumer and keeping it simple.

Oh btw, I am comparing compound interest like how a normal person will calculate it. A credit card company does not do it this way. It is a mess and it not trivial to reproduce their calcs.

Regarding minimum payment: the evilness is not whether interest is being required at the end of the month or not (in non-deferred situations they are) but how artificially low they set minimum payments. For example, my Chase card is 1% of principal. ~40-50% of the people only pay minimum payment in the US and imagine paying at 1% principal, will take you 8-9 years to pay it off. If you change the payment just a little bit (even $50-100 / mth more) can dramatically lower your overall costs.. the credit card companies fought tooth and nail to not put 'minimum payment warning box' saying it is confusing (the idea behind the box was to tell the consumer how much the payment should be to pay it off in 3 years). Wouldn't you want as a consumer to know what's the right thing to do? We have treated credit card companies like doctors -- let them decide what's right for you. That's why we got into the financial crisis and we can do better.

We know consumers are not just going to give up on credit cards and that's why we built SimplyCredit to work on top of the existing system instead of trying to create a new one. They don't need to change anything but they now have a better financial product. Our customers not only like the convenience but also the fact they know exactly what they are getting into and there is a company that is not trick you into paying more.

Check the first link: https://www.google.com/search?q=Citigroup+to+Pay+%24770+Mill... Also check: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2015/07/16/credit-card-fee-in...

I am glad you have not paid any interest to these credit card companies. Our hope is that we can make more and more people like you. They made ~$100+ billion in revenue just from interest charges and I think it is time to put an end to it.

[TL;DR] Simple Interest may looks like has a small delta but for a lender it adds up to some serious money. Also, $2 a month (compounded for a shorter period) adds to $24 / year. We are not about simple interest alone. The revolution (not our words) if any is really taking down the credit card companies without re-inventing a new credit card product.

Hi Jugad,

Thanks for the constructive comment. I want to first clarify one thing -- we are not 'claiming' we are revolutionizing the industry by switching to simple interest (it is a pretty big deal though for the industry as you will see in my comment below but that's not a claim we are making) . As you pointed out the biggest value prop of our service is convenience (you get to keep your credit cards -- no change in your day-to-day use) and lower rates (our rates will be 3% to 15% lower than credit card companies for comparable risk rating) and really diverting the revenue from the credit card companies so they will be forced to change their ways. I can write pages about all the ways a credit company screws a consumer but that will take us away from your very balanced comment.

All the current approaches rely on giving people cash in the form of personal loans supposedly to pay down credit card debt. I can tell you from working in this industry for so long that this does not really put a dent on the credit card companies. At least, for now those consumers eventually start using their cards again and get trapped in debt because the credit card companies don't want them to pay more than the minimum payment. This is what's unique about what we are doing:

Normal: Consumer Spends $1000 -> Pays less than full balance -> Incurs interest -> Bank gets paid handsomely

Ours: Consumers spends $1000 -> SimplyCredit Pays the bank $1000 -> Consumers incurs interest at a lower rate -> Bank gets nothing -> We get paid what we believe is a fair amount

The above picture eliminates the vital revenue source from the banks. Now why this is better for the consumer:

* We have no fees (no late fees, no penalties). The credit card terms are practically irrelevant.

* We don't re-price you upwards (credit card companies do this all the time and that's how they start low and increase your rates as you start building balances -- CARD only solves a portion of this problem)

* We really encourage people to pay much more tan the minimum payment. Banks fought so hard for minimum payment warning in CARD that it is only marginally useful now. We don't want to be like them and that's not our goal.

Back to your original point about simple interest:

* You are correct, we can probably do better in characterizing the benefit as no one is going to compounded their balances over 4-years without paying down principal. We will try to come up with additional examples -- we wanted to keep it simple to illustrate the issue of compounding but point taken.

* The benefit will be meaningful when it look at it over the life of the debt. People paying $2 extra per month means they pay $24 / mth. Over 5+ years period they have paid a good chunk in extra interest just because of compound interest.

* That said, do you disagree with our characterization that this is 'unfair' and 'complicated'? If you ever had to pay interest on your card, please take a look at that statement and see if you can figure out how interest was calculated. Don't just read about the average daily balance and daily rate statements, try to calculate it on a piece of paper.

* I also don't quite agree that this change is 'minuscule'. There are a few things to keep in mind:

* First, department store cards defer interest 6 to 12 months and it is getting compounded away for a really long time. They also charge 25-30% interest. You can repeat the math for that period and interest rate and you can tell me whether that difference is meaningful. You will most likely see a 10-20% difference between compound interest and simple interest. For most people here it $100 more is not a big deal may be but that could be one additional payment for someone else.

* Yes we are making people pay their interest each month but why should we compare against ourselves? Shouldn't be comparing it against what the industry does, which wants things compound away without your realizing it?

* If this is so trivial as you said, why isn't ANYONE doing this? Some people who claim 'simple interest' in their marketing but actually compound. They all do personal loans with EMI. Guess what the standard formula for EMI is a compound interest. Just because you get fixed monthly payments does not make it simple interest.

* To answer my own question above: the industry will not do simple interest any time soon and this is why: A typical bank's gross yield is about 11% and with simple interest they will drop down to roughly 10%. That's a 10% drop in revenue. BUT, their ROA is 3% so a 1% drop in revenue without reducing default rates (switching interest rates formulas will not help here) or opex, their profit drops by 33%. You think a bank will willing take 33% hit to their profit? To you it may sound minuscule but these dollars add to a huge amount. This is in turn used against the very same consumers in the form of heavy lobbying. Is this the world we want?

In summary, I appreciate your calling out on the simple interest page. We certainly not using it as a marketing tool as we are indeed trying to fix a system as I explained to you above -- we are giving up huge sources of revenue (fees and the compound interest delta). But this page is important and we will make it better -- we will try to come up with a typical credit card user payment behavior and show the difference.

I would urge you to look beyond the simple interest delta. To you it is not a big difference but to a lender it is and we are making the sacrifice to keep things simple for the consumer. We are eliminating a whole bunch of crap from the terms that trip up consumers along the way.

I wish we are ready to signup 1000s today but alas integration with banking system requires a measured roll out. We will release more and more information over time to show how this is really different for a consumer. If you have additional suggestions, please send it our way. you can guess my email easily.

Thanks for reading this far.

That's an excellent question. We want to serve everyone but how we serve them will be different. For example, people with very poor credit -- like the ones that go to Payday lending are not going to benefit from having a revolving line that pays off their credit cards; most don't even have credit cards. However, all of them can benefit from a platform that does the right thing for them -- for example, recommend the right payment amount based on people's cash flow unlike a credit card company which tries to push for minimum payment. Or suggesting changes in spending behavior that can dramatically reduce their overall cost.

Especially, the poor disproportionately suffers from compounding of interest. Imagine going to a payday lender (or heck a subprime credit card) and missing a payment. First of, those APRs are insane and on top of it, they compound and just makes it impossible for them to get out of it. We really believe compounding of interest should be abolished on the lending side. In the software world, when users struggle to use a product, the product fails, you don't ding the users. But in finance it is the other way around -- the consumer pays the price for mistakes the lender does. If more main stream consumers demand simple interest and no fees across the entire industry, we will slowly get rid of these evil practices and eventually benefit everyone. We are also talking to regulators on how we can make many of these principles (dead simple terms) as the model for future lending products.

The Economist recently had a very interesting article about how the poor end up paying more fees even though they are the ones who cannot afford it -- for depositing money they pay fees, for withdrawing money they pay fees..they really cannot win either way. While, it is harder for us to help the poor on basic banking (deposit type products) at this time but we certainly have plans to do so.

Lending can be profitable, we just don't think it has to be predatory for it to be sustainable.

Thanks, Brandon. My friends from the industry are already starting to hate us :)

Hey commentzorro, thanks for your comment. I am not sure I follow how you are connecting difficulty in bankrupting to higher rates. If anything, opposite will be true (if your assertion is correct) as they will eventually get most of their money back. Consumer bankruptcy laws are fairly well defined in the US (not that it is nice for the consumer but there is a process) so it is not quite driven by the banks although they probably wrote the legislation around it.

If you ask me higher rates are justified because consumer's get tricked into it. Take department store cards for example, they charge 25% - 30% because no one thinks they need to carry this balance forward when they are buying a refrigerator -- they just want the 15% off at point of sale and 0% for 6 months is a bonus. Fast forward 6 months, they have not paid it off and the credit card company calculates interest by going back in time as those interests were 'deferred'. Now with all the compounding they end up getting stuck in debt for much longer they needed to be.

For people we give credit to, we focus on consumers with good credit. For others, we will still service them and help them by optimizing their payments and those payments will directly come from their checking account.

Edit: I want to clarify one thing. When I say good credit -- it does not mean you need to have a FICO Score or long history. We look at everyone holistically so it comes to down whether you are a responsible borrower measured across many dimensions.

This is Karthik, one of the founders of SimplyCredit. I wanted to share SimplyCredit here because HN folks have pretty strong views about the banking system and I’d love to get your feedback. Also, this community loves 'hacks' and we feel this may be one of the biggest hacks in the financial services.

We created SimplyCredit because we were tired of credit card companies’ approach of 'paying billions in fine is easier than doing the right thing'.

To fight credit card companies, you need to understand why their product has been very sticky -- for example, attractive rewards programs incentivizes spend and gimmicky terms keep people in debt for a very long time. Most consumers are not good with managing their finances so handing cash over to them (in the form of personal loans) to manage their credit card debt does not work -- most of their paid-off cards start accruing balances shortly thereafter. We wanted to build SimplyCredit so the credit card companies will not even see a single dollar in interest charges.

Happy to answer any questions you guys have. I used to work at FICO for nearly a decade so I would like to think I know a thing or two about the credit card industry.

They are very beautiful when dry. However, navigating these steps when there is water is not easy -- they get very slippery when the water level goes down but algae is still present in the supposedly drier steps. A cylindrical design where the steps go around the well with sealable openings may provide similar benefit with little maintenance overhead.

but I think interest versus merchant fees was about a 67%-33% split in terms of credit card company revenue. (American Express is an exception because they do not allow you to carry a balance on a lot of their cards; they will report your account as delinquent and terminate service

That's correct. Depending on the issuer, it tends to be around 70% interest revenue. Pretty much all of their profit comes from this though! Amex does allow you to carry a balance but their ratio is opposite of others 30/70%.

I don't really see the fascination with credit cards either, particularly now that Visa+Debit cards+Chip+Pin+Smart Phones seem to offer a lot of the advantages of Credit Card

What you said before is the key. When your debit card gets compromised your money gets wiped out pretty quickly. Even with limited fraud liability on debit cards, it is still your money that left the bank. With a credit card, you are not on the hook to get that money back -- the bank will put it on the merchant if card was not present or just eat the cost. That to me is the biggest draw of credit cards. Although a normal consumer probably got on to it because of all those rewards and POS discounts.

I would definitely recommend people get a credit card for this purpose. That said, if you are the type who thinks credit card is 'free money' stay away from it -- you will be trapped in debt forever. If you are generally good with managing your expenses, I would say get a 'bank card' (like Citi, Chase, etc.) and put it on Auto Pay to pay it off in full each month. If your limit on the card is low (say $1,000) then try not to spend more than $300 each month (30% utilization) as it is better for your credit score to keep your utilization low.

You will be bombarded with 0% Balance Transfer offers and stay away from those unless you are knowledgeable about this game. You make one mistake and everything you gained by doing the BT will get wiped away.

Also, if you travel internationally you should either use a card that does not have foreign transaction fees or just use your ATM in that country -- usually banks give you better rates than the card companies; the card companies typically charge 3% fees for each transaction.

Fraud rates in the US are very, very low. I don't know the stats top of my head for CNP (Card Not Present or Online Fraud) but in general the industry as a whole was running at around 8-12bp couple of years back. It is not something that will materially change interchange rates. International fraud rates tend to vary but not 0bp. Many European countries adopted Chip and Pin early on, which reduced fraud rates but not to the point that will explain a 60+% diff. See my other comment on lobbying in the US.

I don't use stripe nor a Visa fanboy but I know this industry very well -- I spent awful lot of time there.

Whilst this is true, it's also true that until 2008 Visa was owned by the issuing banks, and since Visa IPO'd the banks have maintained significant investments. So I don't think it's quite as clear cut as "the banks vs the networks". They have a somewhat symbiotic relationship

This is not really the issue. Yes, Visa was owned by banks (so was MasterCard) but they have always taken between 5 and 10 basis points of each transaction (it is not like the fees came down after becoming public). The interchange is high in the US because they ABA and other groups lobby aggressively to keep them that way. Also, given the prevalence of credit cards in the US, the networks have been able to negotiate aggressively with the merchants. When Visa introduced their Signature card product, they increased the fees arguing their product does not have a 'fixed limit' so consumers will spend more which will help the merchant so they should pay more in fees. Amex makes the argument even more so and that's why their interchange tends to be in 3-7% range -- most merchants are not smart enough to do the math and say their customer segment is not really the 'typical' Amex segment and if they don't accept Amex, the customer would have just used a Visa / MC instead. So these rates prevail.

If you ask me why rates are different across geographies it really comes down to the will power of the govt. to set the terms. Most emerging economies see Visa / MC as a threat as their entire country will become dependent on a foreign entity to process payments. They generally tend to set pro-consumer regulations (but largely to annoy Visa / MC/ et al.).

To my knowledge only in the US (maybe Canada) where it is illegal for a merchant to discriminate against a credit card user. After a lengthy lawsuit, the networks and the merchants settled that the merchants can give a 'discount' on cash transactions but cannot put a surcharge on card transactions. The math is the same but the psychology very different.

I wish the rates are fixed amount per swipe and not a % of the transaction amount. Why should it be? If the networks operated seamlessly and allowed new entrants, it would have been like today's cloud computing pricing (almost a commodity) but alas we get only IBM style pricing.

I hate credit card companies from the bottom of my heart but until there is another payment vehicle that is just as convenient it will be stupid of any entity not to partner with such providers.

I have been reading Haskell, The Craft of Functional Programming. I have played around with Haskell for a bit now and going from understanding Monad laws to using them in real life has been a challenge. Often real world library Monads are stacked multiple levels and debugging has been particularly difficult.

Since the Monads chapter in the book was pretty light, I thought I will check out this paper that was referenced. Re-learning the Monad laws from this paper inspired me to look at the implementation details of some basic transformers, which has been very helpful. That said, the paper quickly went over my head after he started discussing denotational semantics!

I sometimes feel learning Haskell is like learning algebra but just that the laws are not obvious to me. I wish there are more materials that walk you through more complex implementation (like 3-level stacked Monads) step by step on how certain things work. I guess once you understand how something works, it is hard to explain to a beginner who doesn't have much of an understanding -- much like riding a bike or swimming.