Boycott US

To me this sounds like an argument against a capitalist-focused implementation of payment systems. Ones in which banks design the system, run the system, and take fees from the system at their leisure. (Interac, for example, takes fees too.)

What you need is a humane cashless payment system. One that doesn't lock out poor folk and charge ridiculous fees to both vendors and customers.

Where I live there are two major cashless payment systems and they are so ubiquitous that I haven't seen cash used in anger in over a decade. Indeed the last time I had local cash in my hand at all was last summer when I needed it to go to Canada, getting it exchanged for CAD on entry and then having to suffer through carrying around wads of cash, having an increasingly heavy and bulgy coin bag, all so I could do things that here would be the quick scan of a QR code or even just waving my phone in the general vicinity of a terminal. (Note: I saw the cash, carried the cash, but didn't use it here at all. I had it only to use in Canada. While still here the rest of my transactions were done the civilized way.)

It was quite the reverse culture shock, let me tell you.

I said that the systems here were ubiquitous. How ubiquitous you might ask? Street vendors with food carts use it. Small hole-in-the-wall restaurants and shops use them. Buskers use them: you just go up to the busker, look around for the QR code, scan it, and pay. No throwing change or bills.

So what are the fees like?

Most people will never see a fee. The one I use most, for example:

• I can withdraw up to the equivalent of about CA$4000 per month without a fee. (In local terms that's a ludicrous amount of money. If you've got the kind of money where you can routinely do this, you're well into "fuck off money" territory.) Anything over that limit is charged the onerous fee of 0.1%. (No, that's not a typo.)
• Note: that's withdraw. Paying for goods and services within the system are free, no cap.
• P2P transfers (end-user to end-user, not business) are capped to about that same CA$4000 per year and anything over that limit is charged that same 0.1%.
• On the commercial side, the transaction fee is typically around 0.6% per transaction.

It is interesting to note that I know all of these fees because they're clearly explained on my payment provider's terms of service and web site. (I also know all the fees from both sides on international transactions, but that's out of scope since I don't use this system for international purchases.) Now try to get a complete picture of the fees you pay when using Interac. Interac itself is refreshingly open about its fee structure, but getting the fee structure out of a bank without first opening an appropriate account and being a customer is an adventure and a half.