Credit or Debit? Interesting Dynamics Behind the Cards

Check out this piece:

Competition, of course, usually forces prices lower. But for payment networks like Visa and MasterCard, competition in the card business is more about winning over banks that actually issue the cards than consumers who use them. Visa and MasterCard set the fees that merchants must pay the cardholder’s bank. And higher fees mean higher profits for banks, even if it means that merchants shift the cost to consumers.
Seizing on this odd twist, Visa enticed banks to embrace signature debit — the higher-priced method of handling debit cards — and turned over the fees to banks as an incentive to issue more Visa cards. At least initially, MasterCard and other rivals promoted PIN debit instead.

 Um, yuck.  Of course, this is not a really competitive market, with only a handful of major producers: Visa, MC, Amex, and what else?  Discover is dead, right?  Indeed:

Visa has a commanding lead in signature debit in the United States, with a 73 percent share.

 That does not sound so competitive to me.  Nor does this:

Critics complain that Visa does not fight fair, and that it used its market power to force merchants to accept higher costs for debit cards. Merchants say they cannot refuse Visa cards because it would result in lower sales.