We still have an important trend in purchases made with cash in Italy and payment cards have only become more used in recent years.
This is a good explanation, because there are no costs for cash to be collected and transacted.
The merchat will have to pay 1.00 percent with the iZettle provider in the best case, assuming it would transact more than €35,000 in one month, but you would still have the € 20 monthly charge, which would set the overall cost at 1.05 percent on a €35,000 base transaction volume.
I agree with you: 1.05% is not as bad as a total transaction charge, but certain transaction costs can be applied by banks, because iZettle is only a payment processor and those commissions are the ones referred to. Not to banks which send or receive payments.
In addition, I would point to another element of payments for your attention: how much is the merchant's margin? Once, in a small store, I tried to buy some stamps, the ones that sell cigarettes, and other small items. I tried to pay with the debit card of the company and they told me that they did not accept payment by card because their commercial margin was too low.As my face probably reflected all my disappointment, the woman in charge also described to me all the commercial margins they have. 5 percent on cigarettes and less than 3 percent on the "Scratch and Win" is the largest margin they could have.
I will bet that electronic payments were not approved at those margins.
How cryptocurrency may help in this way?
There are a few centralised payment providers like Coinbase Commerce and Coinpayments that will allow the transaction to take place with a conversion fee of just 0.5 percent.
Anyway, without the incorporation of such commercial instruments, transactions may also take place, using a Coibase Institutional
Account to collect cryptocurrencies and then to be transformed into fiat, eliminating the fees for Coinbase Commerce. Otherwise, a payment may also be done directly through the wallet, sending cryptocurrencies using native wallets. I have MyEtherWallet in mind, which gives you the fiat-value of the transaction in real time, among others.
And what about the fiscal treatment of cryptocurrencies?
Well, cryptocurrencies are simply regarded in Italy as instruments for exchanging value between parties, which implies that if you alter it instantly, you can convert the reporting into fiat currencies, otherwise you will be exposed to fluctuations in cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrency retention and non-conversion which expose the trader to a capital gain (to be taxed at the end of the financial year) or a loss to be declared at the end of the financial year. Since merchants are not generally financial traders or traders of cryptocurrencies, consultants normally recommend that cryptocurrencies be converted immediately upon receipt.