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Notes -
Huh, why offer lower interchange fees for category 3? After all, the businesses they're charging don't care about how the customer is using their card -- if anything I might expect group 3 to be more free with their money, justifying a higher fee -- and they're not going to offer a discount for using a lower-fee card (or at least I've never seen that). I suppose there might be marginal businesses that'd refuse higher fee cards? But at most I've seen businesses refusing whole brands, not the products within those brands that are meant for group 4 instead of group 3.
This is not true. The reason credit card companies aggressively market Group 4 cards, and are able to charge higher fees for them, is because Group4 cardholders generally have more money than Group 3 cardholders, and since interest isn't a factor, they charge a much higher percentage of their purchases. They are the most valuable customers which is why credit card companies aggressively market rewards programs. Merchants tolerate the higher fees because the people with those cards spend more money. When you tell them that they have to pay the same fees for low-value customers, it doesn't make sense, especially since the banks are already getting paid for the processing costs through interest payments. The only reason they charge fees at all on these is to offset the cost of offering lower interest rates than on other cards.
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