Visa, MasterCard Strike Back at Competitors Like PayPal

PayPal has big ambitions in the mobile payments space. Visa and MasterCard have no intentions of ceding their current roles to any new providers. So it is not surprising that Visa CEO Charlie Scharf suggests Visa may impose a digital wallet fee on digital wallet suppliers like PayPal that use the Visa transaction clearing and settlements network.

MasterCard already does so. 

The charges would apply when branded Visa or MasterCard bank cards are used to fund a PayPal transaction. 

Granted, it may take some time before mobile payments, mobile wallets and mobile commerce assume relatively stable future forms. 

Technology adoption, though we sometimes believe otherwise, can take quite a long time, even for innovations that wind up being quite useful and ubiquitous.

Telephone and electricity took decades to reach significant penetration. The PC, the Internet (Web, at least) and mobile phones were adopted much faster.

Given the current interest in mobile payments, mobile banking and mobile wallets, it might be worth remembering that innovations related to payments and money often take decades to reach significant penetration.

The point is that it would not be unusual for a decade to pass before we even get to the inflection point for adoption, often said to be 10 percent of households.

Visa and MasterCard are not simply "resisting" change; they are trying to shape the evolving mobile payments in ways that ensure they both still have important roles. Raising costs for potential competitors is just one way to do so.