I never considered that businesses pay fees when I use nets/credit card payment. Does it bother any of you that small businesses are affected by the charges?

Do you feel bad that the water utility is essentially a monopoly but still run as a business making profits through their charging model?

Do you feel bad that DBS is making a lot of money? Would you feel the same if you were a shareholder in DBS?

Keep the answer of both in mind when this:

Payment systems share characteristics similar to the provision of water - there is certain features that make it a natural monopoly (network effects, average vs marginal cost of production, interaction with governmental aims).

So why mention that? Well governments can intervene and reduce the (negative?) outcomes of the market structure - ie through legislation it can smooth out the problems. So perhaps you have a PUB/water provider approach.

BUT

You can take a more market approach and that leads to certain players (the poor merchants!) suffering hardship to their business models. In that case, other market players (banks like DBS!) would make more money. Is this good / fair? Again - would you think differently if you owned shares in DBS?!

Anyway - the above to illustrate it is a problem with nauances and no straightforward solution; how I end up dealing with it is thinking that the vendors are in a free market (and could choose not to take cards for example) and so if they do offer then I can take advantage with clear conscience.​​​

yup, most businesses include that into their prices already! Not sure about hawkers though. Have heard some of them complaining that they have to pay monthly fees for contactless payment such as paylah.