Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B(reuters.com) Archive link: https://archive.md/vk8ov Capitol One statement: https://investor.capitalone.com/news-releases/news-release-d... Brex statement: https://www.brex.com/journal/brex-and-capital-one-join-force... |
> Brex is a financial technology company, not a bank. The Brex business account consists of Checking, a commercial checking account provided by Column N.A., Member FDIC, and Treasury and Vault, cash management services provided by Brex Treasury LLC, Member FINRA/SIPC.
Every time a customer in the EU pays with Stripe, they exactly know if they are a private customer or not and in which country that customer is located in. Stripe also knows who the counterparty is ("their merchant").
Yet Stripe systematically enabled their merchants to avoid paying appropriate VAT for sales to private customers in the EU. The merchants would send you a "receipt" and then go dark, no proper invoice provided and no appropriate VAT payments to the EU made.
Their merchants could write fantasy names on the invoices, Stripe would not check or correct anything. They simply ignored the whole Mini-One-Stop-Shop in terms of VAT.
That's the "benefit" of using Stripe, they had very happy merchants who didn't need to pay taxes when selling digital products to EU customers.
I had to light a very big fire under their ass for them to provide proper invoices. I have zero indication they systematically remediated the tax fraud situation and actually paid the EU the VAT that Stripe merchants owe if you'd look into Stripe's accounting.
The obligation has always been on the company making the sale not the processor.
https://money.usnews.com/credit-cards/articles/biggest-us-cr...
This list counts Discover separately, but Discover is owned by CapitalOne now.
Chase got it instead, but they are losing it next month because of their shenanigans and greed
Wish crypto hadn't been co-opted by the same people and worse
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/capital-one-strikes-5-...
Text-only:
https://assets.msn.com/content/view/v2/Detail/en-in/AA1ULTnJ...
Maybe just pull a Bending Spoons after the acquisition, layoff most of the staff, and bring a lot of ops in-house and they'll be in profit ASAP.
Well, on a related note: https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...
"Capital One marketed its 360 Savings accounts as “high interest” accounts with “one of the nation’s best savings rates”...However, while interest rates rose nationwide...Capital One kept the interest rates for its 360 Savings accounts artificially low...Instead, Capital One created “360 Performance Savings,” a nearly identical type of savings account that provided much higher interest rates than 360 Savings..."
“Capital One misled consumers through false marketing and a lack of transparency regarding its savings account system, cheating consumers nationwide. Given an opportunity to make loyal customers whole, Capital One sank their teeth in even more, attempting to underpay people it harmed and continue its deceptive practices"
Now I have a good job, and have been fortunate, but I don't live in a tech hub or am I surrounded by other high earners.
It struck me in that moment that these banks offer high convenience to people who never really have ever had true savings. The interest rate is largely meaningless when your account is chronically in the $250 to $1250 range. Things like app integration, and easy user friendly deposits and withdrawals are much more important.
I think if you are someone who financially made your way to a place where interest payments are meaningful in size, you probably left those "convenience" banks a long time ago. The thought has made me more mindful about my bank rants now.
Unless you really think you might need the money immediately, chances are that keeping your money in a brokerage account and using a money market fund (say, VMFXX or something like that) will lead to less headaches with rate manipulation, as the funds aren't playing games with the general public.
The new qualifications to be a Brex customer at that time were:
> Received an equity investment of any amount (accelerator, angel, VC or web3 token);
> More than $1 million a year in revenue;
> More than 50 employees;
> More than $500k in cash;
> Tech startups who are on a path to meeting the criteria above, and are referred by an existing customer or partner.
Of course, the VCs take a cut, but overall the redistribution seems net positive to me.
Do you know how many businesses move money on Stripe rails? It's wild.
You tell me. Would the same people who help evade tax payments in the EU really do the same in the US? That's unbelievable! /s
> The obligation has always been on the company making the sale not the processor.
That's incorrect. At minimum, the processor needs to tell me exactly who the money goes to, so I can reach out to them.
And that's a "legal reach out" kind of information including company name, company type, company registration number, and company country of incorporation.
Stripe makes it easy for merchants to obscure that information and is actively hiding it from the customers who paid the merchant.
And Stripe is OBLIGATED to tell me at least who is the damn COUNTERPARTY to my transaction. Company name, company registration number, company country of residence. Ideally with address. And - wow - now we have everything to actually legally follow up with the merchant to get a proper invoice from them.
But Stripe is actively obscuring this information, and making it hard for users to find out. Many of the Stripe merchants don't even have an imprint on their website.
You ask why they hide the information? Because otherwise it would be clear even to ignorant people like you that in fact a VAT needs to be paid on that transaction.
1. halving the interest every time my CD renews, "it's the market...", no -2% is not market fluctuation
2. they force you to go to an office to cancel renewal
3. I did this and told them if they did it again, I was leaving them. Guess what they did the first opportunity they got...
4. Their tech is trash too
It's not a bank account so you will still need a backup checking account if you need Zelle or similar, and it has no way to deposit cash - but the CMA has direct deposit, ACH transfer, debit card access, and check writing, so 95% of the time it does all you need.
(in the industry, but not at a startup)
I'm doing a consolidation / rebrand around the verdverm pseudonym this year
Stripe does KYC for their merchants and exactly know that they are a company of certain type from the US.
Stripe facilitates a sale of digital goods between the US-based merchant and EU-based consumer. At this point the US-based merchant is obligated to pay the VAT and create an INVOICE.
Only Stripe knows from which EU country the customer comes from. The US-based merchant does not know which EU country the customer comes from.
Therefore Stripe is obligated to calculate the applicable VAT (based on country of customer) for the transaction and deduct it fromt he payment amount. STRIPE IS NOT DOING THIS.
And once payment is made Stripe does not enforce the merchant to provide an invoice, even though Stripe knows exactly it just facilitated a sale of digital goods between US-based company and EU-based customer. Stripe even enables the merchant to put fantasy information into the receipts and invoices, they don't have valid company name, addresses, or registration numbers.
Stripe also allows their merchants who just did a transaction to EU customer to only offer a "receipt", with no sign of an invoice. This "receipt" can contain a single website url, it can contain total fantasy name, it does not need to contain an address, or even a country of the Stripe merchant. It does not contain a company registration number or jurisdiction of the Stripe merchant. It does not contain company type or legal company name of the Stripe merchant. EVEN THOUGH STRIPE KNOWS ALL OF THIS BECAUSE THEY KYC THEIR MERCHANTS.
This is in total violation of any EU accounting rules which also applied to Ireland where the Stripe EU HQ is.
Luckily Stripe lawyers know exactly that they are systematically aiding and abetting tax fraud against the European Union and once you press the proper regulatory buttons they will cave, and after months of stonewalling suddenly their merchants are forced to provide their FULL COMPANY NAME AND COMPANY REGISTRATION NUMBER AND COUNTRY OF OPERATION, and actually state VAT in the invoice.
But their default mode of operation is "We are located in Ireland, EU law applies to us, we know EU customer buys digital goods from US merchant, we KYD'd the merchant but still we ignore that EU VAT applies to the transaction".
Any accountants and lawyers working for Stripe Ireland should be disbarred just on the fact they are associated with this systematic tax fraud.
There was no systematic remediation of the situation - even though Stripe knows about tax fraud by a merchant, they will only restate the invoices FOR THE SINGLE CUSTOMER THAT COMPLAINS ABOUT IT instead of forcing the merchant to properly create invoices for every single transaction with EU customers of that merchant.
Show me a tax agency in your country which allows you to get away with this. It is highly criminal, systematic behavior, clearly targeted against the European Union.
At the time we had signed a large enterprise agreement not long before that, and we even were advertised as a enterprise customer testimonial. When we mentioned that he said it was final. They ghosted us apparently and from what i heard a bunch of companies were the same somehow no longer acceptable for their services. I had a friend who worked for a very large F500 company who also got a similar treatment.
Ironically i had a friend a tiny crypto startup that somehow was allowed to stay despite not meeting their requirements.
This was made a bit more annoying when they lost their magical single operating cash sweep account and forced you to split to a separate Treasury account in order to earn interest. Even with auto balance shifting rules, I've had a few transactions fail because of bad timing. (And ACH is scheduled at the same time an intra-bank transfer is scheduled, but the ACH processes overnight and intra-bank has to wait until market open.) Super obnoxious.
Or having to double login to Brex to first do a transfer from treasury and then wait hours to then login and schedule the ACH.
Anyways will never use Brex again after all that annoyance.
nek minute - focus on Enterprise, dawg eat dawg :)
Another good thing about Mercury is that in case you’re stuck/not being treated fairly, you can just email/publicly mention Immad (CEO) and he’ll reply within minutes and will look into this
If you can't provide a billion dollars worth of value, extract a billion dollars worth of grift!
I hear A16Z is hiring.
But all employees after 2021 are underwater. I wonder if they got any relief from management or if they got screwed.
But honestly, it’s still one of the biggest fintech deals ever and actually gives people real money in a market where most unicorns are just stuck. The founders are reportedly splitting about $1 billion each, early investors (2017-2018) are getting 12-80x returns, and YC’s tiny $120k seed turned into ~$100 million (800x, insane TBH). Even later folks (especially the 2021-2022 crowd) are breaking even (at least) or getting a little upside thanks to some 2024 RSU top-ups.
To keep people from jumping ship and to make things feel fairer, IIRC in 2024 Brex did some RSU "top-ups" - basically, they handed out extra shares at the much lower current valuation to compensate for the drop and give those folks a better shot at actually making some real money or "breaking even".
Brex last raised $300M in Oct 2021 at a $12.3B valuation.
If they really only raised $1.7b, per Crunchbase, then this seems to me like a very good outcome for everyone involved except its late stage investors. And, even for the late stage investors, they're breaking even.
It sounds like investors got out okay, but employees got fucked big time. It's a terrible exit and Brex waited too long until their growth stalled.
Considering the 12bn round was back in 21, I'd expect most of the employee base to be taking a haircut on the value of their options.
Capital One is paying a fair price for the customer base and infra imho to add to their business customer portfolio.
Congrats to Brex et el on their incredible journey.
Capital One got a nice discount.
Brex killed a ton of their customer relationships to "refocus" on larger biz. That created a lot of negative sentiment for the brand.
> All Ramp did was spend more on ads and marketing
That's distribution. It matters.
Ramp has a much more synonymous name, better recognition, and less bad reputation.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190827190311/https://www.wsj.c...
Mavis Beacon Approved
Let's talk about “Liquidation preference”.
Means investors get paid before founders during an exit.
The basic math: investors get their money back first, then everyone else splits what’s left.
Usually 1 times.
Sometimes 2 times or 3 times.
Occasionally, “participating preferred”... get money back PLUS percentage of remaining proceeds.
This means founders can build a $100 million company and get nothing when it’s acquired if venture capitalists structured it right.
Here’s how it works in a typical acquihire:
The startup raised $10 million. Gets “acquired” for $15 million. Sounds like a win.
The liquidation waterfall:
Venture capitalists get their liquidation preference first: $10 million.
Legal fees and transaction costs: $2 million.
Retention bonuses for engineers: $2.5 million.
Founder compensation: $500,000 vesting over 3 years.
Early employees who built everything: $0.
The $15 million exit becomes:
Investors made whole.
Lawyers paid.
The acquirer got talent locked for 4 years.
The founder got $500K spread over 3 years.
Employees got nothing.
In a real exit, liquidation preferences get worse with multiple rounds.
Series A investors: 1 times preference on $5 million.
Series B investors: 1.5 times preference on $15 million.
Series C investors: 2 times participating preferred on $40 million.
The company sells for $100 million.
Series C gets $80 million for their preference. Plus 30% of the remaining $20 million. Total: $86 million.
Series B wants $22.5 million. But only $14 million remains after Series C.
Series A gets $0.
Founders get $0.
Employees get $0.
The company sold for $100 million.
Late investors took it all.
That’s liquidation preferences.
The structure venture capitalists use to ensure they extract regardless of the outcome.
Build a $50 million company?
Liquidation preferences eat it.
Build a $100 million company?
Liquidation preferences eat it.
Build a $500 million company?
Finally, maybe founders see something.
But most companies never reach $500 million.
So most founders never see anything.
The preference isn’t protection.
It’s extraction by design.
Real-world example: Brex.
On January 22, 2026, Capital One announced the acquisition of Brex for $5.15 billion.
Brex was last valued at $12.3 billion in 2022.
58% down round.
$7.15 billion vanished.
But the real damage happens in distribution.
Brex raised hundreds of millions across multiple rounds.
Late-stage investors who invested at the peak $12.3 billion valuation have senior liquidation preferences.
The waterfall likely looks like:
Series D/E investors: 1 to 2 times preference on $300+ million.
Series C investors: 1 times preference on prior rounds.
Series A/B investors: 1 times preference on early rounds.
Total preferences could easily exceed $3 to 4 billion.
Leaving $1 to 2 billion for common stockholders.
Founders and employees hold common stock.
After 8 years building a company “worth” $12.3 billion that sold for $5.15 billion, the founders might walk away with a fraction of what they expected.
Or nothing at all.
Meanwhile:
Pedro Franceschi, co-founder and CEO, gets to keep working... for Capital One now.
Venture capitalists get their preferences paid.
Capital One gets the business.
Build a $12 billion company. Sell for $5 billion. Watch preferences eat everything.
The founders who built it get whatever’s left after investors take their cut.
That’s liquidation preferences in the real world.
Not hypothetical.
Happening right now.
But wait...
Won’t founder Pedro be fine?
Probably better than employees, yes.
Here’s the extraction hierarchy:
Capital One negotiates a management retention pool.
Pedro gets carved out before liquidation preferences hit.
Part of his payout comes as a retention bonus, not equity distribution.
He likely sold shares during secondary markets at peak valuation.
Translation: Pedro probably walks away with low 8-figures plus a retention package.
Not zero.
But nowhere near “co-founder of $12 billion company” money.
Who gets destroyed:
Early employees with common stock options: $0.
Mid-stage employees who joined at $5 to 8 billion valuation: $0.
Late employees who joined at $12.3 billion valuation: negative. Underwater options.
Engineers who turned down Google... $300K salary plus $500K stock.
For Brex... $180K plus equity “worth millions”.
Just lost everything.
The real extraction:
Pedro built an independent fintech company.
Raised billions.
Hired hundreds.
Served thousands of customers.
Now he’s a Capital One employee for the next 3 to 5 years.
Can’t leave. Retention package clawback.
Can’t compete. Non-compete clause.
Can’t build independently. Golden handcuffs locked.
He traded “founder of Brex” for “division president at Capital One.”
The money he gets is real. The freedom he loses is worth more.
The pyramid:
Top: Late-stage investors. Get preferences, exit clean.
Middle: Founder/CEO. Gets some payout, loses independence.
Bottom: Employees. Get nothing, lose jobs, or become Capital One workers.
Liquidation preferences don’t just determine money.
They determine who keeps their freedom.
Investors: always free to move to the next deal.
Founder: locked into the acquirer for years.
Employees: lucky to have a job offer.
Pedro won’t starve.
But he’s not independent anymore.
That’s the extraction that doesn’t show up in the press release.
Unless someone has insider information and is willing to post, we have absolutely no idea who was made whole, who lost and/or who gained.
At the size of Brex, anything is possible and it depends on how much leverage they had at each priced round. Guaranteed payout, equal, founders multiplier, lead multipier. All possible.
Additionally, what people don't realize is the headline number can get severely inflated IF debt is included in the purchase price. If say their book was 4.3B in debt then the equity part is ~800m and all of a sudden everyone's underwater.
We simply don't know the details.
Unfortunately for the majority of people, there are effectively zero good outcomes from any of this. Just like none of the previous promises and assurances of how {insert technology} would make things better for everyone, while always turning out to only benefit a few; so will the current lies of the same pattern result in the same output.
Seems like Capital One is very excited on the deal and announced it earlier while Brex hid the announcement and made it hard to find. (It's on the Brex [0] journal directory, but you cannot see it featured on its front page)
What (really) happened?
I think this is a pretty decent outcome for Brex. I read they received a total of 1.3 billion in funding, so a 5.15 billion exit isn't bad, especially since the bottom dropped out of the market for so many fintechs that were founded and had big raises between 2015 and 2021.
There are liquidity preferences, nobody took a haircut, they may not made a lot of money as long as the sale price($5.1B) is greater than funds raised($1.2B) everyone made some money not as much as they thought, but nevertheless some.
The reason may be different than you think, Capital One is known for its aggressive marketing campaigns and physical mail spam, it is more likely they didn't want to upset the customers and end users on what Capital One will mean
It is quite likely Capitial one will mine the data, monetize the brand, sell other products and target high value users the typical Brex user.
hence few fare well in the public markets or when its time for acquisition
It's just another case of the principal/agent problem and normalized white-collar fraud in US tech.
So that number should be even closer to 12…
But also, they're looking at moving their credit cards to Discover as well, which would make huge waves (both in the credit card/banking world, and for their customers, who would probably find it very annoying).
This isn't a value judgment on people who do use credit cards. There are plenty of reasons why using a credit card by default would be appropriate, and I'm not shocked to hear of someone who does so. But I am curious where your shock comes from, so I shared my story as a data point.
I wouldn't be surprised if, despite the large-sounding acquisition sum of ~5b, many employees are getting their equity zero'd out and replaced with a back-loaded 4 year grant, with vesting starting today and no credit for time already worked.
Both guaranteed payout and multiplier are forms lowering your specific allocation of the evaluation so you get a larger payout vs the rest of that group or future groups.
How much you use social media, and are a Brex customer, is going to influence how big you think that group of people is, but it's for sure, non-zero.
That doesn't sound good.
I know individual investors get pretty crazy for blockchain, but I don't recall any major companies doing big investments.
At most, I was asked about it briefly, explained what the usecases were, and it never came up again.
At some point yes. Lots of large financial institutions had such projects. IBM e.g. was involved in quite a few of them.
> Cryptocurrency and stablecoins are also starting to see traction after an extended struggle to gain mainstream adoption, John Collison added, per the report.
> William Gaybrick, Stripe’s president of product and business, referred to agentic commerce and stablecoins as “twin revolutions in intelligence and money” at a company event in 2025, the report said.
Absolutely not true. It means someone made money, but it very much does not mean that "everyone" made some money.
In deals like this, common stock often is valued at $0, and employees are instead given a 4-year grant of RSUs in the new company. In other words, their time at Brex was worthless, and they have to last 4 years to get anything. The schedule is often back loaded (eg $0 in the first 2 years, 50% at year 3 and 4). Since most folks won't make it to 3 years, the company knows they won't be paying out almost any of these grants.
Brex was a lot more all-in on Elixir, including being one of the languages "stars," but moved to a more conventional stack (IIRC Java/Drop wizard microservices with Kafka to talk between them).
The order of operations is not "everyone breaks even, then we start distributing profit".
The order of operations is "people with preferred stock (i.e. investors) get all their profit, and then employees get whatever's left over".
The fact that the amount of investment money put in is less than the sale price is meaningless. If you are an employee with options at a strike price of $5, and the common stock price is now $2, you're screwed.
So series B is worth about 250M and series C is worth about 625M. Series C-2 is worth about 1.5B. Series D is worth 425M and Series D2 is worth 300M because of LP. That's a total of 3B.
That leaves 2B for everyone else. Most employees are going to get fucked big time, especially the ones after 2019. They will get a small fraction of their RSUs and all their options will be worthless, if they had options.
> the company re-cap'd employees at a more realistic valuation a couple years back. So looks like all employees benefited here which is a major win. Respect to the founders for looking out!
This could be not that hard to pull off. American Express historically was less accepted because of their high fees, but I don't think Discover has or had that problem.
CapitalOne shareholders will decide if they want to sue the management over buying a company which primarily focuses on AI-bubble-startups.
We're at a very late stage of the AI bubble which might be the last ZIRP-fueled bubble to pop after which VC as an investment vehicle will be dead for years to come. Rising tide lifts all boats and all, but many of the "genious" VCs already have problems returning capital from their older funds.
Capital One management is friends with VCs, VCs want to cash out from their investments without big losses, some parties, some holidays, as easy as that.
Not saying they did well, but depending on the 409a valuations, they still might have made money.
Edit: friends, if you’re going to downvote please leave a comment as to why. It’s okay to disagree! There’s a lot of misleading FUD in these discussions about equity. It’s helpful for everyone to hear those sides.
More specifically, when employees are granted options contracts the strike price of those contracts is based on the last valuation of the company prior to the grant. If all is going well and the valuation is increasing those options are also increasing in value. Here we have a sale which values the company lower than the prior valuation. Recent option grants will likely be underwater, earlier grants would still be profitable.
> The valuations you see, like $12bn, are for preferred stock.
No, the valuation is for the whole company, all of its shares, preferred and common. How this value is distributed among shareholders depends on the deal, but generally there is a “seniority”, roughly: creditors (debt holders) are paid first, preferred shares next, then common shareholders last. This order can be negotiated as part of the sale.
> So no employees got stock priced at $12bn, but all of them get paid at a $5.15bn valuation.
It’s just not possible to know what each individual employee’s outcome is. We don’t know how much of that 5.5 billion will be left over for common shareholders including the employees. Note that employees have received salaries so their overall outcome is greater than zero dollars, but perhaps their total compensation outcome is lower than they hoped for the time they put in.
> Not saying they did well, but depending on the 409a valuations, they still might have made money.
Yes, some might have and some might have not. We just don’t know without more details.
Edit: singron’s answer (sibling comment) attempts to model the employee outcome in a rough but reasonable way.
They have a different strike price for options that is set via a 409a.
It’s possible that employees got, at the peak, grants with strike prices at a $2bn 409a valuation. We don’t know. What we do know is that no employee ever got grants with a strike price of a $12.5bn valuation. That’s just not how this works.
If you‘re just a regular employee with some options, and the acquirer doesn‘t want to keep you on, you should expect nothing.
So they're getting the employees' shares without compensating the employees?
And there's incentives paid to the people who approved the deal, separate from their shares?
(I've heard of liquidation preferences, but never by the person making a job offer with stock options. Bribery also never came up.)
Early employees' options will have value, but more recent options are likely underwater.
Bitter about VCs? Me? Never.
This is called value creation.
They should make a card with a second chip on the other end (that will only be approved if used abroad) so that you can still use an ATM on a trip.
Credit cards are one of the most insidious ways that banks extract money from those living closest to the margins of poverty. The benefits you gain are a fraction of the profits gained from raking the most vulnerable over the coals of bankruptcy. They're a financial instrument of torture and I refuse to have anything to do with them. I'm not by any means rich, but I'm 48 years old, have zero debt, and will spend the rest of my life avoiding debt.
Finance is not a zero sum game.
There is no "moral" quandary. Sellers that have the same price for credit and non credit payment methods are simply betting that people using credit will be more willing to pay higher prices overall and still buy from them compared to their competitors' with lower prices who charge more for credit cards.
Every year, fewer and fewer of my expenses are paid with a credit card because more and more sellers are not betting on this. My kids' gymnastics class/tutoring/daycare charges 3% or more for credit cards. My home wired ISP and mobile network provider charges 5% more for credit cards. My property tax, insurance, water/sewer utility, all charge 3% or more. Even Target charges 5% for credit cards. Basically all tradespeople that come to fix things on my house charge extra and ask for Zelle/Venmo electronic cash payments instead.
So in all these cases, I do not use a credit card to pay. But the point is, it is up to the seller to decide what price they want to charge for credit and non credit, so there is no "moral" quandary for buyers. No one's hand is being forced.
Edit: to respond to comment below due to hitting posting limit, the extra charge does not go to the card issuer, the seller collects the higher price. If I choose to pay with a non credit card payment as a result of the extra charge for credit cards, then the credit card issuer gets nothing.
Whether or not credit card interest rates and terms are usurious or otherwise morally problematic is not a credit card user's moral responsibility. When I use a credit card, I do not ask or enable or incentivize someone else to be taken advantage of.
Since you have such high moral standards I hope you don't invest in any index funds because lots of companies in those would probably not live up to your standards
I know this isn't popular in the USA, but when compared to the rest of the western world, consumer debt is off the charts insane in America and it doesn't have to be that way. I've lived on both sides of the pond and I much prefer a society where people buy things that they can afford instead of financing everything on the back of a hope and dream that they will for sure pay off the balance this month.
As for the "but muh security!!" argument that I can hear someone typing, having a credit card for security is a terrible argument. You should be lobbying your politicians to regulate financial institutions to build better systems that are not susceptible to such obvious exploits and fraud. Again, much of the world has solved this problem to the point where I can post my bank account number on my business website and nothing bad ever happens. Customers can wire me money directly without approval and I have to manually approve all outgoing transactions at least once (scheduled transfers are still possible); it's not rocket science!
As for saying that the argument that using credit cards because they have more fraud and security measures is not a good argument because the world should be different is also quite silly and naive since arguments should be made based on how the world currently operates not how you wish it might operate in the future. Life is much easier when you live in reality
Counterpoint, the financially literate are subsidizing the existence of the financially illiterate via taxes and social programs.
Shareholders are of course free to sue the board for acting outside of the interests of the shareholders overall, but this happens very rarely because typically the company would otherwise be shutting down and it’s very hard to make the argument that the deal undervalues common shareholders’ shares.
(The two most recent offer equity components I accepted were "2%" and "a million shares". On the latter, an upper exec did a kind of deal-closer meeting for their offer, showing me a spreadsheet, estimating how much the options would be worth if there were an exit in X years at $Y valuation.)
If they have any experience, or even just browse a forum like this, they should be 100% likely to know. The person on the opposite side of the negotiating table has a goal of giving you as little as possible in exchange for your work (and vice versa).
I know people with terrible credit may have problems getting a credit card, and others may have trouble not treating a credit line as spendable beyond their means, but everyone else should keep the 'debit card' at home or at least confined to their wallet.
I've had this happen to me twice in about 25 years. Neither bank made me wait weeks.
The most recent one (with a giant megabank) issued a provisional credit in under an hour.
There seem to be a lot of people in this thread who have never actually been through this and are just apeing what other people say online.
U.S. banks largely give debit cards the same protections as credit cards for at least the last 15 years.
I've been through it personally and with friends.
My experience was basically yours. I am a relatively highly paid professional with a large amount of assets with my bank. I get pretty good service, even at my giant national retail bank. I call, make a demand, they tend to just do it without too many questions.
My more low income friends have also gone through it, and I've assisted with them since they were panic'ing. Their experience is absolutely nothing like mine. Every single one spent days to weeks being sandbagged by sometimes the same bank I dealt with on my issue.
Your experience will very greatly depending on how "valuable" of a customer your bank feels you are to them.
> U.S. banks largely give debit cards the same protections as credit cards for at least the last 15 years.
On paper, sure. In practice, no. Funds frozen during an "investigation" matter a whole lot more when it's your money vs. a made up credit limit number that wasn't real to begin with.
Slowly over the next three months the charges were slowly reversed. In the end the bank didn't reverse all of them, but my friend did get most of her money back.
All other spending should go onto credit cards, for numerous reasons that have been bought up throughout this thread.
There's nothing wrong with debit cards being used.
If I can shout one thing back up to your rooftop:
Why on earth do your transactions cost 2 or 3 percent. For what? For basically verifying an RFID chip and adding a single entry to a ledger?
Don't say you're getting it back with points or whatever because we all know that the credit card company won't be going broke so that cut is coming from somewhere. And in the end that's always the consumer
Even better, our small town (pop. 100) gas station upgraded their pumps a while back, and they have NFC! Finally my normal fill-up location is skimmer-resistant. Or is it skimmer-proof?
They will get $300m back.
Opportunity cost sure. But zero nominal loss.
The entire field of economics depends on post ipso facto statements like this.
Like, the world economy can't continue to function even if acquisitions were only 80% value creation on average? Or does the entire world economy depend on companies acquiring other companies with 100% value creation on average, such that it continuing to function logically implies 100% average value creation?
Brex can be worth $5b today and also be worth less in the future. These two realities don’t conflict. Acquisitions can and do end poorly. But the vast majority work well. I am not sure what you don’t understand about that?
Not in the jurisdiction I live in. You should not generalize your local laws to the rest of the world.
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/new-rules-el...
>Discounts to Customers
>A PCN cannot stop you from offering your customers a discount or another incentive for using a certain method of payment, as long as you offer it to all your customers and disclose the offer clearly and conspicuously. For example, you can offer your customers a discount or a coupon if they pay with cash or a debit card rather than a credit card.
I've never bothered to understand the details since none of the private companies I've worked for have had the non-cash portion of their comp be worth anything but $0 before.
Ding ding ding ding ding!
Most ICs figure this out sooner or later. Unfortunately many only discover it after being screwed hard financially.
The number is much much lower than that. Most acquisitions fail or don't have much impact.
Put a reader with a shield on the pad and a new pad on top and a small terminal in somewhere out of sight. You won't know the difference. Requires infrastructure though so it is a bit more complicated and a lot more noticeable. Likely used the non-pin entry limit which is always reset after you payed a large amount and had to enter your pin. Not like the strip readers of olden days.
Anecdote: We had a "chip charge" system where you put money in your card via a ATM like device and those sometimes had strange "extensions" in front of it which read your chip while you charged it and immediately took the money. People often don't know what too look for when it comes to skimming devices and with tech it may look like a strange but genuine device.
Technically this is actually impossible.
You have debt the moment you swipe/dip/tap that card and make a transaction with it.
That you settle the debt before it incurs interest is absolutely not relevant to the types of folks who do not want to carry debt as a matter of principle. I was one for some time while I figured my life out, and even having $100 hanging over my head for a few days was mentally tiring.
It's exactly the same as borrowing $10 from a friend to cover lunch and stressing about remembering to pay them back next week when you see them.
Some people for various reasons simply do not do well with debt at any level. I do now use credit for day to day things and pay it off every month, but that's the only debt I carry. And it is absolutely in every sense of the word debt. It's just debt that has a 30 day interest-free grace period.
I agree that the US financial system does not currently operate in a manner that is secure for consumers. I am not naive to that reality (I'm also American and have had various amounts of credit card debt throughout my life, and also times when I paid off balances for years). However, that does not diminish the societal responsibility to advocate for a financial system that is more secure by default. The fact that I need to expose myself to more financial risk in one area to circumvent a shortcoming in another area of the market is a bad thing, in my opinion.
Again, I think if we capped interest rates at something reasonable (12% maybe?), it would force credit card companies to more seriously evaluate if their customers can afford the debt they are incurring and this entire problem would disappear overnight. Sure, there would be less rewards programs as revenue would be decreased, but we would make society better as whole by not incentivising a financial instrument that ruins millions of lives annually. We tried doing it this way for almost 50 years and it doesn't seem to be working out for society if you believe the debt/income ratios as a percentage of GDP in the United States.
As to your last point, I'm much happier living in a reality where I own the things I purchase. Nobody is ever going to repo my car if I lose my job. A sheriff/the state is never going to come to my home and take things to pay off a creditor because I hit the unlucky lottery and was injured in a freak accident or Act of God. Please try to engage my arguments in good faith and not make personal attacks about my separation from reality. The rest of the western world is proof that you do not need debt to participate fully in society.
You are saying they make money off of interest which of course is correct. But I don't pay any interest so by your own logic I'm not contributing to this evil company's profit so how is it a moral dilemma? And how is my argument circular?
> The rest of the western world is proof that you do not need debt to participate fully in society.
I'm not advocating for debt. In fact I have no debt, I even own my house outright. Don't try to argue against things that I never even said :)
The main argument that people who seem upset at my original comment keep making is about how they don't want to take on debt to buy something. Well I absolutely agree. I save and invest the majority of the money I make and I've never bought anything on bad debt in my life. But if you learn the absolute basics behind credit cards you can treat it the exact same as a debit card but you get extra benefits. Not sure what is so hard to understand about that lol
> I'm also American and have had various amounts of credit card debt throughout my life
I think this is the key here. You are probably upset about the poor mistakes that you made in the past and you want to blame other people for it. I fully realize that the majority of Americans can't use a credit card responsibly so I'm glad that you are able to see that for yourself but you shouldn't make wide sweeping arguments about why other people shouldn't use them
That's true, but by accruing rewards, you are indirectly incentivising the CC company to increase interest rates to subsidize your usage. If every single CC user didn't carry a balance, there would be no rewards (see Europe).
I think we ended up at a better place here at the end so I will end with the last point.
When I was 17-19 year old, I had a small credit card with a $3k limit. I never hit this limit and it was never a problem on my path to financial freedom and I largely paid off the balance in full every month. My spouse and I were debt free by 26yo after paying off $75k in student loans. My aversion to consumer debt has little to do with my own experience and more to do with how I see it affecting my friends and family and American society more broadly. We put speed limits on roads to protect people from themselves. I'm only advocating for similar guardrails as it pertains to credit cards and other high interest consumer debt.
Especially after moving abroad, I just don't see the point in a system that is built on top of so much debt. It only hurts the most vulnerable people in society while funnelling money back to people who probably don't need it, imo.
Also, that means the person had the PIN too? That becomes harder to defend
This way you're not actively having to top off your normal spending account, but at the same time have a backstop in case that active account gets hit by fraud or whatever.
I'd suggest protecting yourself even further and having those accounts be split across two different banks. This way if one of your bank credentials gets hacked or you have some issue with the bank you at least have a chance of still having an account with cash someplace else to cover the short term.
1. Paycheck DD → straight to savings
2. "Spending money" for in-person transactions → transfer periodically to checking
3. Use debit card to spend from checking.
That's an interesting idea. Actually what is intriguing to me is another angle: I'd still never consider spending with debit. But my problem is that it's essentially impossible to get an ATM card that isn't a debit card anymore, meaning if I want to be able to use an ATM, I have to carry this stupid card around that would be easy to use to drain my checking account. With your approach, if I can get a savings account that is not linked to a checking account, I could use that as my default place where I pay my rent and credit card bills from. But it's a big if, because a lot of savings accounts have limits on how many withdrawals they can have per month, probably a residue of that regulation that someone else said was recently repealed.
Retailers(in the US) typically eat the cost. Some industries(in the US), like gun shops, are up front about charging more for credit card payments. Most companies(in the US) just see it as cost of doing business.
Points have next to nothing to do with why you should always use credit cards(in the US). There are legal consumer protection reasons. The points are just an optional perk.
This is what I really have a problem with. It feels so incomprehensible to me that, assuming you're an adult, you can think this.
It's just a cost, if that cost didn't exist then either the price would be lower or the margin would be higher. In the end you're paying for it. You're the one exchanging money for a good/service.
This is proven by your other comment about how some sectors give you the option. I would rather have that option because those legal protections are useless for the majority of purchases. Good luck disputing that burrito you bought or those groceries. In such transactions you're basically just inviting a company to take a cut for 0 added benefit (aside from points).
I think you're misunderstanding the protections we're talking about.
When someone steals my credit card and spends $10k on it, I just dispute it. The charges don't show up on my bill until after the investigation happens, and chances are it will be found in my favor. I continue having my cash in my bank account. Life continues with no changes.
When someone steals my debit card and spends all my cash, I dispute it. They begin their investigation. This means I'm without all my cash for days, maybe weeks, while they do their investigation. Now I can't pay rent. Now I can't buy groceries. My life is pretty messed up at this point.
I've seen it happen to several people personally. It happens all the time.
So, someone could open up a cash-only chain store and have lower costs that could allow them to price things a couple percent lower, but the absence of that business suggests that they know nobody wants to go to the trouble of paying cash anymore for a savings of a few bucks a month.
I expect that if credit card fees went to 0 tomorrow, no prices would change (though I'd lose thousands in value I get from points each year). Many retailers like grocery operate on thin margins already, so they'd be especially eager to keep the block of cheese at $2.69 instead of dropping it by a few cents.
And even if you could prove that eventually some retailer would give pass on that savings to customers, I still would rather use a card than deal with cash. And stores know that they sell more than they would if (1) everyone had to carry cash everywhere they go and also (2) if people couldn't spend on credit. That's what the retailers are spending 3% on.
Simply not true. Every transaction with a card carries some risk of those cards details being leaked or even an innocent error being made by a cashier or clerk fat-fingering things. Some more than others, and you could maybe argue the risk is minimal - but it's there. Especially in the US where card transactions are less secure on average regardless of debit or credit.
Credit carries significantly more consumer protection in the US. Debit in theory has all sorts of legal protection, but as the other commenter states - in practice it's really spotty.
Even in your scenario of a burrito or grocery purchase credit is going to be much better. So long as you don't make a habit of chargebacks they are typically pretty automatic for most card issuers so long as you present a compelling case. If you're a "valued customer" you tend to get a few freebies before they start to really demand evidence of fraud for such things.
For whatever reason most do not, so it's advantageous to use the one with better legal protections. It's not only about purchase protection/disputes, but liability and timelines when/if someone steals your card info and makes a bunch of fraudulent charges. The more places you use a card, the higher the chance that info will get skimmed or stolen.
Luckily, while behind, most places in the US have moved to tap to pay which helps a lot with POS skimming. But it only takes one bad employee to photo or copy your card info, or one poorly configured webstore, to leak your information and use it for online purchases. My most recent credit card doesn't even have numbers or an expiration printed on it, for that reason.
This is not really true. Europe has much lower merchant fees which is why the rewards are lower.
Dead wrong. Its still a big problem in the US.
https://www.kansascityfed.org/research/payments-system-resea...
> In 2023, 21 percent of U.S. consumers experienced financial fraud: 17 percent of all consumers (or 18 percent of consumers who own credit cards) experienced credit card fraud, and 8 percent of all consumers experienced non-credit card fraud (with some consumers experiencing both types of fraud).
Sure, we've now moved to do tap to pay and chipped cards for a lot of transactions. However, this is useless for online orders which just requires knowledge of the magic numbers which all are helpfully printed on the face of the card you hand to people, tell over the phone, or type into websites.
We need to move towards actually secure online payment systems.
Waiter presents me the machine, I insert my card or wave it over the NFC reader of the machine, if I insert the card, machine always ask for pin, if I use NFC, it will ask sometimes based on some obscure criteria.
For really expensive transactions, eventually, I may get a notification on my bank app in the phone, asking me if I am really, really doing this, I authenticate with biometrics and click ok.
it is not that hard.
Lots of restaurants and bars have been slow to adopt new systems. While many have moved towards waiters having portable machines and can process the payments table-side, probably half the restaurants and bars I go to expect the waiter/bartender to handle the card.
Few banks/merchants actually require a PIN for transactions most of the time. I couldn't even tell you what the PIN is on most of my credit cards, its never come up on a lot of them even with $1,000+ purchases.
So add another layer of duopoly and middlemen to the way I pay for things. No thanks!
What happens when Google permabans me because I failed to pay a $0.50 cloud bill a few months ago and I got forever locked out of my iCloud account? Guess I can't buy anything online again ever.
Don't get me wrong I've used these for payment processing before, but I'd really prefer some kind of more standardized way of doing payments directly instead of adding yet another middleman. I already have a secure token device with me (the credit card), I should just be able to pay directly with it through the website.
Relatedly, the credit card system is truly a tragedy of the commons situation.
It's a ~2% drag on the economy for what? For some silly points with constrained value and an excuse to not build better financial infrastructure.
The frustrating thing is that, given the current equilibrium, you're a sucker for not using a credit card - you end up subsidising those who do.
points are just premiums: some insurance consumers are a greater risk, and so pay more.
any convenience features are built on top of the insurance product: _because_ all players are covered, _therefore_ i can make online purchases. _since_ (i have a justified expectation that) i am not liable for fraudulent use of my account number, _therefore_ i can read it to a customer service rep over the phone.
we can of course debate whether 2% is a good price for this coverage! but there must be some price paid here -- if the insurance broker doesn't collect it, the scammers will. this, after all, is the real tragedy.
So assuming the rest is all the same, you just paid exactly what you would've paid with a debit card. Because the merchant had to raise prices to accommodate the fee. And that's with the credit card company not taking a cut and we all know that's not true.
High tier cards are more expensive to accept, unless your merchant rate is a high enough flat rate that it covers the average and then some.
Yes we'll open a dispute. Yes we'll give you a credit immediately. But then we just take the sellers word for it that they're trying to make it right and charge you anyway.
This is my one singular experience with a dispute but that's with a big bank getting almost all of my transactions over the course of years....
Just saying, your 'few freebies' is where you rip off a merchant. That's pretty much theft at that point
Other folks might have just as legitimate reasons to make a chargeback, but due to a low internal “customer value score” they will need to jump through a bunch of hoops a more “valuable” customer would not for the exact same situation.
I tend to agree chargebacks are taken advantage of far more than they should be - but my point is that the chargeback experience is going to vary drastically by demographic.
I was originally interested in Bitcoin 15 years ago because of the fraudulent chargeback problem. It’s interesting how times have slowly changed and chargebacks are starting to shift towards a benefit for the privileged due to the sheer amount of abuse from so many people. Basically we decided to tie them to a hidden credit score.
But I would hate not to have the option of using my bank card by itself. When I travel, I always carry my wallet and a couple of card, because your phone can die, be stolen, you can be out of charge, etc...
You typically need a PIN for any decent purchase. Sure you can tap to pay but that wouldn't be a lot of money fast as it asks for a PIN above a certain amount. That problem of copying the card data is only because it's a credit card and that's all you need to make a purchase.
As to skimming, in Europe there was some active skimming going on in the early 2000s which is why I can't even recall seeing a terminal here that still issues the magnetic strip.
Every debit card I have in my wallet right now can be used anywhere a VISA is accepted using the same kind of number as a VISA card. I can go to any website that accepts VISA as payment, type in that same 16-digit number as any other kind of credit card, expiration, and CVV and essentially empty it out in a few minutes.
This has been true across many different banks. I have had ATM-only style cards issued in the past but I haven't encountered one of those in over 20 years.
I think it's possible to write the number to the strip of your cloned card with the bits set to say this is NOT a chip card, so that a terminal won't say "Use chip" -- but clearly the issuer could have the opportunity to notice it odd that the transaction is using the stripe and hopefully subject it to harsher fraud heuristics.
Despite the name, many people use "credit cards" simply for rewards and enhanced purchase protections, with only incidental use of the credit facility.
In the US market, it is surprising that someone would choose to use a debit card over a credit card (if they have the choice) because they are giving up the rewards and enhanced purchase protections, which are available at effectively zero cost.
If I used a debit card over a credit card, I'd effectively be paying ~2% more for most things I buy, for no benefit.
It wouldn't be quite the same impact spread out over 5 cards paid out of multiple checking accounts with slightly different billing cycles.
I have several cards and don’t keep a balance on any of them. They’re a tool with several uses, and one of mine is to be able to pay for things without exposing my debit card/bank account.
Hence why cash discounts are a thing (and yes they're legal again).
It's not a great system but it's what we have so using debit instead of credit does mean losing out.
This is no longer a thing, there was a settlement with Visa/MC that removed this provision from their merchant contracts. You are now allowed to pass on transaction fees if you feel like it as a merchant.
It was also never illegal. It simply was part of the contract to do accept Visa/MC/Amex and they'd close your merchant account if you got caught doing it.
Using a debit card, in the event of fraudulent charges, the money is already gone from your bank account and now you are negotiating with your bank to get it back. With a credit card, you file the claim and its generally resolved before your statement closes and anything is due. Your card will also be immediately cancelled, so if its your debit card you will lose ATM access while awaiting the new card.
This will happen to you many times over the course of your lifetime, maybe every 5-10 years. Usually when a number is stolen, they speed run getting as many $1000s of charges in before the card is stopped, which would drain your debit card account.
Credit history is also important. If you don’t have a credit card and build basic credit history before your first job, you will have trouble signing a lease without a parental guarantor.
They make money off people who pay interest so I just take advantage of that.
People who like to tell other people they shouldn't use debit cards often cite fears of fraud, but that's really never been a problem for me.
So there is actually no good reason to use debit cards. I say this as a former user. Makes no sense at all once you think everything through.
As the sellers get bigger and bigger and electronic cash payments become more normalized, I think we'll see more and more sellers charge at least 3%, if not 5% extra for credit cards so that all of their merchant fees and chargeback risk are covered.
Right now, it's just a bet that having the same price for credit card and non credit card will result in sellers willing to pay a higher price (a psychological phenomena), but more and more sellers are not betting on that.
I wonder if the effect of people being more willing to pay higher prices is seen in discretionary purchases, so travel/non staple retail will continue to incentivize credit card usage, while most other businesses will not.
I have had exactly one encounter with fraud: a vindinctive ex-girlfriend stole my card info and had herself a little shopping spree, emptying my checking account. I walked into the credit union branch, filed a report, and walked out with $300 and a new card. All the stolen money was restored within a few days. It was not a big deal.
You just agreed with my premise but that in your case the dollar amount was low enough to be inconsequential. If someone ran up $5k of charges on your card right before you needed to pay rent/mortgage/whatever, this would have been far more annoying.
Also - credit card protects you from this scenario, for free, or in fact pays you money with any of the cash back cards.
For example in New Zealand, EFTPOS cards are very popular (similar to debit cards, but issued directly by our banks so no user fees ever - the merchant pays for the machine and that's it). People usually have all 3 - an EFTPOS card for most in-person purchase (although online EFTPOS is gaining adoption), a debit card for online or paywave-only places, and a credit card for large purchases/ emergencies. Credit cards here are highly unpopular among the under-25 age bracket; most young people just have EFTPOS and debit.
I think this might be a result of our stricter banking regulations compared to economies like the U.S.; it's difficult for banks to offer tempting enough rewards schemes to entice people to credit cards. Additionally, there is much less of a borrowing culture - most people will only ever properly borrow money once - buying a house. Paying cash for cars is the norm, and purchasing anything else on finance is seen as stupid compared to just saving the money (and earning the interest yourself).
As to fraud protection, I agree, but as noted in another reply, I wish I understood why the protections afforded to credit don't also apply to debit. There must be some systemic reason for it that I'm unaware of. As it stands, my best guess is simply that "it's a perk to entice people to use credit".
1. Scammer clones your credit card with a skimmer and pays for $500 of clothes at the mall. You dispute the charges. The funds are actually not given to the store for a bit given that credit transactions take a while to settle. Upon the dispute, the store now needs to prove that you were there and bought those clothes to get their $500, or else the bank/Visa won't pay them.
2. Scammer clones your debit card with a skimmer and pays for $500 of clothes at the mall. You dispute the charges. The store already got paid though. The bank doesn't want to give you another $500 in case you are actually in on the scam, then they'll be out an additional $500. Eventually assuming they can't prove you actually bought the clothes, I think the store would have the $500 confiscated, but usually you're still liable for $50 if you reported it quickly enough, but could be more if you take too long to report the fraud.
Of course debit cards can easily be converted to even easier-to-launder money substitutes, too.
There are merchants that do not do this, such as Target, which charges 5% to use a credit card. Insurers/tutors/daycares/schools/healthcare providers/contractors/gas stations/restaurants/governments/utilities are also known to frequently charge more for credit card payments.
Any seller can choose to offer a lower price for debit card / ACH / Zelle payments if they want to.
You gave them your PIN too? Yes, then you have something you explain.
Without it no one is spending anything beyond the tap to pay amount which would typically be low amount (double digits)
On top of that, I can use the card online using the same kind of credit card numbers. This does not require a PIN.
Still a cc company involved, so they'll take a cut without any of the advantages. Not even sure why that's a product
It’s also fundamentally different. There are protections, but they depend on you being aware of the activity to avoid impact. Basically, in the event of fraud with a credit card, Chase or AMEX have a problem. With a debit card you have a problem until the resolve it. In the meantime, your payments and checks may not clear or hit overdraft.
As long as you can control your spending, credit cards are a real superpower for consumers.
This can work amazingly well for some folks. And can be a spiral of debt for others. This is generally good advice if you can and do actually pay off your credit cards every month. This gets quickly out of control as soon as you don't or won't for one reason or another.
> credit card protects you from this scenario, for free
Sure, but using a debit card issued by my credit union also protects me from this scenario for free, with no risk of getting in debt or having to pay interest. That feels safer to me: fraud is rare, but debt is common, so I'd rather protect myself against debt.
While there are still some interchange fees involved, its less than the overall fee with actual credit cards. Its often more like 0.5% + $0.21, the max allowable fee under the Durbin Amendment.
Especially service companies. They tend to quote out "cash" (aka check/bank transfer) price and then add another 5% or so if you want to pay via card. There of course is very often an even cheaper "actual cash" price too you need to ask for if you are so inclined.
With a debit card, your money is out of your account, immediately, and you have to fight to get it back. For some banks, for some accounts, this isn't a big deal, and you might have it back in a few hours. But for others it might take weeks, and in the meantime you've failed to pay your rent or mortgage.
There are fee free cards that give cash back as statement credits (AMEX Blue iirc). No limitations on what you can spend it on. The Apple Card does 2% cash back which you can just transfer to your bank account.
The Amazon card requires a Prime membership, but gives 5% back on anything bought at Amazon. I bought my last TV using the 5% back I had received.
Then there are top tier cards like the Chase Sapphire or Cap One Venture X that have yearly fees. But, if you take 1+ trips/year they immediately pay for themselves and more (credit for global entry, yearly statement credit for travel that almost equals the yearly fee, lounge entry, etc...). I routinely use points from the Venture X to cover travel expenses like tickets, rentals, hotels, eating out, etc...
https://frugalprofessor.com/bank-of-america-customized-cash-...
To your point, it's not free money at all: the credit card companies are collecting fees, and the merchants are passing them on to you. This is a way to claw a part of that back - if you don't use a rewards card, you're paying _even more_.
Amazon gives you 5% back for using their credit card, it's criminal not to use it.
If you buy a lot of equipment or expensive equipment - B&H credit card covers sales tax! I.e. 10% for my area! (I don't use it since I don't buy that much, but still it's an option)
I know I could probably min-max this into more by juggling different cards for things like Amazon and Costco but I'm lazy and don't want to think.
I have no experience with small commercial banks though.