>CC fees for merchants can range up to 4%, most of it goes to the CC providers.
It mostly seems smaller merchants simply don't switch their acquirer to get cheaper rates and complain about "high costs". FWIW, credit cards are capped at 0.3% interchange (which is what the bank gets), debit cards at 0.2% since last year. Scheme fees for MasterCard/Visa are peanuts and even AmEx doesn't cost 4%.
That would certainly explain why chains like REWE actually set up their own card acquirer... and yes, with the cheap terminals I actually referred to C4L (disclaimer: not related by work, just a happy customer).
It mostly seems smaller merchants simply don't switch their acquirer to get cheaper rates and complain about "high costs". FWIW, credit cards are capped at 0.3% interchange (which is what the bank gets), debit cards at 0.2% since last year. Scheme fees for MasterCard/Visa are peanuts and even AmEx doesn't cost 4%.
For example see https://www.cashforless.de.
Visa/MasterCard credit and debit 0.98% German debit (girocard) 0.25%