I wrote last month on how credit card companies have a wrong vision by punishing the merchants with higher fees (to compensate for lower fees that they will be getting from credit card users), it didn’t take that long to prove my point. A recent article proved that people, in 2009, relied less on credit cards, and more on debit cards. Bad news for Visa and Mastercard (that’s the price you pay for getting greedy):

V has lost over 4% today, and has closed at $68.55, $2 shy from its 52 week low of $66.50.
MA has lost over 3% today, and has closed at $194.40, $1.40 shy from its 52 week low of $193.

You see, Visa and Mastercard tried their best to maintain and increase their stock price by throwing the burden on the merchant, and this hasn’t really worked, as now many merchants are refraining from accepting credit cards, resulting in less people using credit cards and more people using debit cards.

Expect Visa and Mastercard to have a substantial drop this year as well. That’s the price of greediness.