What a load of nonsense. Visa, Mastercard etc. are payment scheme providers - they are not banks they are technology companies. The separation of scheme and processing in 2016 happened because of this attitude. Because people thought there was some sort of monopoly on processing transactions. It opened the way for any Joe Bloggs to come in and start their own payment scheme infrastructure, and you know what? No-one has. Trying to create a worldwide network of payment processing with 100% uptime, doing crazy things like approving contactless transactions on the tube within a millisecond before the idiot behind you starts sighing etc. You only have to see what headline news it is when bank's own systems go down, imagine what would happen if Visa or Mastercard went down, in today's world? It's amazing what they do really.
How is it a nonsense? I never once said they were a bank and you seeing them as technology company is completely irrelevant to anything I posted. Amazon is also a technology company by that argument, let’s face it, AWS is by far their best and most profitable product.
The point is that they have an almost immoveable market position in something which is almost as essential as food and water in the modern world. Cash is going the way of the dodo whether you like it or not.
Just because in theory another provider could everted the market, it doesn’t mean it’s realistic. The barriers to entry to the market make it so difficult that is practically impossible to do.
Your own post literally demonstrates why the market needs to be regulated and their fees kept in check with what’s reasonable, it’s basically impossible for competition to establish itself. It’s a scenario where they can supernormal profits unchecked without intervention. This is always where free market capitalism always falls down because self interest always prevails. It’s human nature.