R1 | Suby

CTO @subyhq | Payments & Stablecoin Infrastructure

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

europe put a price cap on the rest of the world's cards

since 2019, @Visa and @Mastercard cap the interchange on personal cards issued outside europe when they pay a european business: 1.50% on credit, 1.15% on debit, online. voluntarily extended to 2029

say you sell to canada with no entity there. every canadian card is a cross-border payment wherever you process it, with a currency conversion if you charge in cad. the real choice is between two foreign acquirers, and the reflex is the us

a $100 online payment by a foreign visa card, in interchange (the fee that goes to the customer's bank), conversion excluded
> debit: $1.60 in the us, $1.15 in europe
> classic credit: $1.60 vs $1.50
> premium, like a canadian infinite: $1.85 vs $1.50
> infinite from elsewhere: $1.98 vs $1.50

the catch
> you need a real business in europe: staff, sales tax, local contract law. an eu acquirer alone doesn't count
> you only see the gain on interchange-plus pricing
> personal cards only
> conversion, network fees and your processor's margin aren't capped

no entity in your customer's region? you're cross-border anyway, and europe is the cheaper place to be cross-border from

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@ZyntaFinance unrelated buddy

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

payment is an art, not a science

once a country where you have no presence starts to matter, local acquiring can earn you more from the customers you already have

say you sell online from europe and orders from a country on another continent keep growing. your acquirer (the bank or processor that takes card payments for you) is abroad, so each customer's bank sees a foreign sale and declines many of them. you had already paid to bring those customers to checkout

the 30/60/90 rule, a rule of thumb for some countries
> acquired cross-border: about 30% approved
> cross-border with 3ds, where the customer confirms with their bank: about 60%
> a local entity and 3ds: about 90%

from 60 to 90, the same 100 buyers bring 50% more sales, with no extra marketing spend

take india, one of the countries where the gap is wide. its central bank's rules show where it comes from
> cards are issued with online and international payments switched off
> every domestic online payment is confirmed with two factors. a foreign one without 3ds skips that step
> since 1 october 2026, indian banks must be able to answer a 3ds request from a foreign merchant

the gap changes from one market to the next. in japan, cross-border can be approved almost as often as local

when it's worth it
> split your approval rate by card country and price the declines in lost sales
> add 3ds first. it needs no entity
> a local entity is the investment, with an acquirer licensed there (@Adyen in india and japan, @checkout in japan)

it pays off once the sales you recover outgrow what the entity costs to run

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@AcrossProtocol @Namecheap who told you namecheap was a good idea for your domain?

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@gaspardlezin https://t.co/JhTcsZq4Ct

[vitalik.eth @VitalikButerin]

Expanding on why I believe "ETH as store of value (SoV)" makes much more sense to focus on than "ETH as fee-burning token".

Three primary reasons:

1. ETH as fee-burning token never was as strong as it seemed
2. Optimizing for ETH as fee-burning token would demand Ethereum and ETH function in ways that are very hard to make compatible with decentralization and capture resistance.
3. Meanwhile, optimizing for ETH as SoV is aligned with Ethereum focusing on its unique strengths (decentralization and CROPS)

EIP-1559 (including its burn) is fine and good, we should keep them. But we should not feel sad if fee burn is < 10% of breakeven indefinitely; the value of ETH comes from elsewhere.

The core idea: the big thing that people appreciate about Ethereum is decentralization and CROPS. The main pragmatic benefit that these things translate into is stability. SoV is the category where that is not an unneeded extra we merely put effort into for ideological reasons, but rather a pragmatic strength from the perspective of people putting in their assets. And in the era of AI disruption, stability will be highly valued.

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

recovering a declined payment is an art, not a science

your customer's subscription renews and their bank declines it: insufficient funds. the billing system retries an hour later, then the next day, and gets the same no. after a few of those, the bank starts treating your charges as suspicious

whether to retry
> every decline comes back with a reason code from the customer's bank
> some codes mean the answer will never change: card lost or stolen, account closed. @Visa and @Mastercard forbids retrying them
> the rest can be retried, up to 15-20 times

insufficient funds is its own case
> the card works, there just isn't enough money on the account today. retrying in an hour asks the same empty account the same question
> wait until money comes in. payday is the obvious moment: in the us, 9 in 10 employers pay more than once a month. in france, once a month by law, so aim for the end of the month or the first days of the next
> ask for less. a yearly plan that fails can fall back to one month

the expert move: partial authorization 🥷
> waiting means guessing when the money comes back. partial authorization asks the bank how much it will approve today
> you ask for $100 and flag that you'll accept less
> if the bank supports it, the answer comes back through the card network with the balance available, say $70, instead of a decline
> you collect exactly that $70 today and charge the $30 after payday, if your terms allow it

visa makes it mandatory at gas stations, where the pump can't know the bill upfront. for banks it's mostly optional. so it works on some cards like debit and prepaid cards, not all, and @AmericanExpress doesn't allow it on recurring

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@gaspardlezin cool view

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@ctatedev cool

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@JoinTagadaPay nice

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@vigstar1 @Visa all right np sir

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

when a card payment says "approved", no money has moved yet

take a fuel pump. your card is accepted before you've pumped a drop, so the station can't know the amount. it asks your bank to reserve a sum, up to €350 on @Visa in europe, and sends the real figure once you've finished

authorization, in seconds
> the acquirer, the bank or processor collecting for the merchant (@stripe, @Adyen, @Nuvei, @Worldpay_Global, @checkout, @nexigroup, worldline), asks the customer's bank (issuer) through the network
> the issuer reserves the amount. nothing is debited
> atm withdrawals and us pin debit do it all in one message

clearing, later
> the acquirer claims the money by sending the issuer a record of the final sale
> the banks settle a daily net amount, and the merchant gets paid minus fees

a hotel works the same way: an estimate, raised during the stay, up to 30 days on visa to charge the bill

if you capture manually, "authorized" is a state with no money behind it yet, and it expires: 5 days in person and 10 online on visa, 7 online on stripe

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@vigstar1 @Visa wdym, I wasn't talking about the fee breakdown here

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@gaspardlezin @Visa thanks bro

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@copytop_ tech is good

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@gaspardlezin @jerallaire @brian_armstrong @psneville @Nick_van_Eck @nassyweazy @jespow @toly @rajgokal forgot @gaspardlezin

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@gaspardlezin Nice concept

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@binance crazy

[R1 | Suby @etherwan_]

@eden_bch good tech