Quote:
Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit
How hard would it be for Dragon lady to create her own banking institutions that, while not taking over established ones, would be as recognized as them and Dragon credit cards being accepted wherever current credit cards and online payment processors are accepted?
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Ignoring the peripheral story, I assume the question here is how hard is it to found a bank? Every nation has their own banking laws, but mostly it's slightly harder than setting up a new widget-making company, but not too difficult. Here in the US people open community banks and co-ops all the time.
Credit cards are a more complex issue, because while banking is a two party transaction (the bank and the account-holder/loan applicant), a credit card transaction involves at least 4 (the card issuer, the customer, the merchant accepting the credit card, and the clearinghouse that owns the network). The problem with starting up a *new* one is that the money making part of the point-of-sale side of the operation is individual vendors agree to pay a fee to the clearinghouse for each card their equipment can handle, which they hope to recover because the card holders spend more money there. If there are not many people who have that card (or who would want to use it at your store) getting accepted everywhere that current major credit cards are involves millions of individual store owners deciding to regularly paying a substantial amount of money to the clearinghouse to provide access nobody trying to use to pay them. That won't happen. I suppose the card issuer could pay the fees instead, clearinghouses presumably don't care who pays them as long as the money is good, but then the issuer is either losing a fortune on the deal or needs to figure out a way to pass the cost on to the cardholders somehow (say by charging a large monthly fee whether you use the card or not)