Who Owns the Payment Rails?
Dr. Sarah Chen
Senior Fellow, Payments Policy Institute
When you tap your card at the register, you probably think nothing of it. But that transaction crosses a network owned by one of two companies — Visa or Mastercard — that together process nearly $15 trillion in purchases every year. How did two private companies come to own the infrastructure of everyday economic life? And what would it mean to build something different?
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Key Takeaways
Visa and Mastercard together control roughly 80% of U.S. card transaction volume.
Interchange fees — paid by merchants — average 2–3% and are largely invisible to consumers.
Several countries have built public payment systems that charge a fraction of private network fees.
The Federal Reserve's FedNow system is a partial step toward public payment infrastructure.
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Dr. Sarah Chen
Senior Fellow, Payments Policy Institute
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