From: BrianW 
Newsgroups: uk.finance uk.legal
Subject: Re: Barclaycard....Advice needed
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:32:51 GMT

Alex wrote:
> At 01:50:27 on 11/08/2006, Tim delighted uk.finance by announcing:
> 
>>>> Alex wrote:
>>>>> How so?  And before you say "it's easy to have a database
>>>>> of every retailer in the world" think about the practicalities
>>>>> and cost of this and weigh it against the net benefit to
>>>>> everyone.
>>> Jonathan Bryce wrote:
>>>> Presumably Visa and Mastercard already do have a
>>>> database of every retailer on their books in the world.
>> "Alex" wrote
>>> Don't be daft!
>> Each acquiring bank has a database of their merchants, don't they?
> 
> Yes.
> 
>> So why can't they share that with VISA/Mastercard?
> 
> Perhaps VISA/Mastercard doesn't actually want this information?  Why
> would they want to hold a massive database that will be permanently out
> of date?

You mean like Visa's database of ATMs. It includes one near me for a 
branch that closed about 10 years ago, whilst missing another which was 
installed at about the same time.

-- 
Brian