Kroger's California subsidiary to bar Visa credit cards amid fee dispute

[Anonymous]

Kroger's stance will prove to be futile.

No matter how large Kroger and its parent company are, Visa is far bigger, plus Visa has the upper-hand so to speak, because the majority of debit cards and credit cards are Visa. Which means, the majority of their customer carry Visa debit/credit cards.

How will this affect Kroger?

Customer who don't carry cash will shop at their competitors, who do accept Visa, primarily due to convenience.

Plus, it's going to tick Kroger customers off, who will spend a half-hour to an hour loading a cart, waiting in line, only to find out they can't pay for their groceries, because Kroger has taken this stance and make the customers feel as if they have wasted their time!

Then, you have to pay a cashier, who has rung up all those items, then you have to pay a supervisor to come over and talk to an angry customer, then you have to pay a stock boy/girl to restock the items that the angry customer left as they stormed out of the door.

Kroger picked a fight that it will lose and lose badly.

Everyday consumers, don't care about the petty fight between to major cooperations and if Kroger continue to shout, those charges from Visa will be handed down to its customer, then I think kroger better think twice about that!

Just my opinion.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Kroger's stance will prove to be futile.

No matter how large Kroger and its parent company are, Visa is far bigger, plus Visa has the upper-hand so to speak, because the majority of debit cards and credit cards are Visa. Which means, the majority of their customer carry Visa debit/credit cards.

How will this affect Kroger?

Customer who don't carry cash will shop at their competitors, who do accept Visa, primarily due to convenience.

Plus, it's going to tick Kroger customers off, who will spend a half-hour to an hour loading a cart, waiting in line, only to find out they can't pay for their groceries, because Kroger has taken this stance and make the customers feel as if they have wasted their time!

Then, you have to pay a cashier, who has rung up all those items, then you have to pay a supervisor to come over and talk to an angry customer, then you have to pay a stock boy/girl to restock the items that the angry customer left as they stormed out of the door.

Kroger picked a fight that it will lose and lose badly.

Everyday consumers, don't care about the petty fight between to major cooperations and if Kroger continue to shout, those charges from Visa will be handed down to its customer, then I think kroger better think twice about that!

Just my opinion.

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IIRC Visa debit cards are still accepted. This just affects Visa credit cards, which very well might not be all that many customers (at least at Smith's and Foods Co.)

As for whether they'll succeed, I'm not sure. They already have the right to surcharge for credit cards for the most part, so why not do that instead?

[Anonymous]

I too saw this the other day. And considering that they count for 90% of my grocery spend, I did feel a bit upset at first. As my debit cards are all Visa logo. lol

Once I found out it was only CC, I was relieved. On one hand I applaud somone for standing up for something, as it does help keep these fees down. Hopefully.

Though the other hand, some people like to use their Visa for certain rewards. Which in this case would interrupt that spend.

I also have to point out that it's only Visa, meanwhile MC their Partner CC is still accepted. And I'd wager to say that the fees are about the same. But I imagine that Kroger didn't want to upset their MC Rewards cardholders. 

I guess it's a tradeoff on whether we want lower CC fees, or to earn the rewards and or perks of said CC?

[Revelate]

They explicitly called out Visa swipe fees; MC swipe fees are probably lower for them as they are negotiated independetly.

Ultimately Visa figured Kroger was bluffing: whoops.

[Anonymous]

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@Revelate wrote:

They explicitly called out Visa swipe fees; MC swipe fees are probably lower for them as they are negotiated independetly.

Ultimately Visa figured Kroger was bluffing: whoops.

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I think they're getting specifically called out because a) more cards are Visa than anything else and b) a lot of the higher end rewards cards with the most use are Visa branded. IIRC interchange for WEMC is similar if not identical to Visa Signature/Infinite.

[Anonymous]

Looks like Kroger and Visa came to an agreement on at least the debit routing issue: https://www.digitaltransactions.net/visa-and-kroger-settle-debit-routing-lawsuit-but-partial-credit-.... Their other issues are still TBD, however, so probably no reenabling of Visa credit at the affected chains just yet. Since the agreement is sealed, I'm not sure if it's simply a reduction in interchange on debit card transactions or if it's more extensive (such as allowing debit routing to be forced by merchants without giving customers a choice, like what MC apparently allows).

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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“Visa's rates and fees are among the highest of any credit card brand," 

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Of course they didn't mention that there are basically 4 brands in the US. Visa's rates and fees are also among the lowest.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote: It's 

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@Anonymous wrote:

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“Visa's rates and fees are among the highest of any credit card brand," 

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Of course they didn't mention that there are basically 4 brands in the US. Visa's rates and fees are also among the lowest.

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It depends. The highest end Visa cards (Visa Infinite, etc.) can easily be almost, if not as expensive as e.g. AmEx. It's very possible that Kroger's seeing a lot of usage of those vs. lower end cards and extrapolating that to Visa itself being the problem since that's an easier soundbite to understand. I fully expect they'd say similar things if they were seeing a lot of World Elite MCs, for instance.

[ChargedUp]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote: It's 

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@Anonymous wrote:

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“Visa's rates and fees are among the highest of any credit card brand," 

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Of course they didn't mention that there are basically 4 brands in the US. Visa's rates and fees are also among the lowest.

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It depends. The highest end Visa cards (Visa Infinite, etc.) can easily be almost, if not as expensive as e.g. AmEx. It's very possible that Kroger's seeing a lot of usage of those vs. lower end cards and extrapolating that to Visa itself being the problem since that's an easier soundbite to understand. I fully expect they'd say similar things if they were seeing a lot of World Elite MCs, for instance.

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Of all the stores in the Kroger Chain, FoodsCo is on the lower end of the bunch, with Food4Less. Think FoodMaxx and Grocery Warehouse, with all the steel racks and that peculiar smell throughout the place.  FoodsCo likely sees more EBT cards than Signature cards.