Item — HN Reader

>Meanwhile interchange fees in places like EU and Australia are more like 0.3%

Those places don't have the ruthless competition between card issuers and various rewards that occurs in the US. I was paid $1000 by Chase for opening a new card and doing the spend on it that I would have done anyway. I get 5% back on every purchase made at Amazon. I get 3% back for every food-related purchase. I get 2% back for every other purchase. I get rewards for my monthly rent payment. Etc., etc.

>I live in Asia where there is a cambrian explosion of QR-code based payment methods.

No American, used to having his Visa or Mastercard accepted at 99% and Amex accepted at 97% of places, would want to switch to constantly having to scan gigantic charts such as your example to see whether his card/payment method will work.

In other words, the US has the competition you spoke of, without the inconvenience.

In Europe we don't often have recurrent bonus, and they're much smaller, but we still have banks giving you up to ~200€ to open a bank account and use it to deposit your wage, or other banks having cashback. Right now I'm having 10% cashback on everything (up to 70€/month of cashback) + 50€ for opening an account with ing. All I have to do is keeping a balance of at least 100€ for 1 day before 2026.

Other banks are starting to finally adapt to other countries and give interests on the liquidity you have in your account