Yes, exactly - in ApplePay. Then I could finally leave my physical girocard at home. I need it like twice a year when a small shop or bakery or something doesn't take MC/Visa.
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Apple Pay Support Goes Live for Germany's Sparkasse Debit Girocard
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That's pretty much the only good thing the coronavirus brought along. I've seen a lot of bakeries add contactless payment recently. I think anytime food is handled, contactless payment is a must because most vendors don't really care. They do wear a rubber glove, but a lot of times, they just grab something, put it in a paper bag and then take your money with the same glove.
The useless part is that some stores have contactless, but don't support credit cards. I didn't know this was even possible, it works flawlessly for me in most stores, even some smaller ones and I live in a rural area. Except for one store (V-Markt) where for some reason my Apple Pay was always declined, so I wanted to try if it worked if I used my physical card (still with an RFID chip) and the cashier told me they don't take Visa. So I was like "yeah, but it's contactless, it should work, it works in every other store" "WE DON'T TAKE VISA!". Okay, lady, then take my effin' cash, even though you have a big sign that says "we prefer card payments over cash". I know, not the woman's fault, but how can one store be so stubborn?
It's not like cash payments are "free" either. The store has to pay for people to come pick it up, they have to pay for it to be counted and then again to be deposited into their account. How ist that any better than just taking that 1 or 2% Visa/Mastercard charges them?
lol no it isn't.
Banks and their stupid "security" measures…
Well done! I am looking forward to using my debit card (Maestro) with Apple Pay. While the credit card works well; I'd rather have the bookings directly on my bank account.
Obviously I'll leave data traces for my bank then (at this time, they only see "helmlein has paid his credit card bill"; afterwards they'll see "helmlein has refuelled at BP in Geneva"). That however, is just moving the interesting data from the CC provider to the actual bank, but it may be of more use to the bank than it is for the CC provider...
H.
Obviously I'll leave data traces for my bank then (at this time, they only see "helmlein has paid his credit card bill"; afterwards they'll see "helmlein has refuelled at BP in Geneva"). That however, is just moving the interesting data from the CC provider to the actual bank, but it may be of more use to the bank than it is for the CC provider...
H.
Hop over again from the Netherlands and see - you might be surprised that things changed since your last visit
I'd say I pay about 90% of the time with apple pay in Germany. Shops, Restaurants, Taxi... can think of just one store where it does not work and this is because it does not accept visa. Which won't be an issue with the giro card anymore.
Other countries have native free instant bank transfers that are easy to do, making Apple Cash a hard sell? Whereas Americans pretty much have to use third parties to get even remotely close to that.
Yup.
Pretty incredible that "the check for my landlord is in the mail" is still a thing Americans say in 2020. Just do an automated monthly bank transfer, or direct debit.
Ich bezahle 95% meiner Einkäufe mit Apple Pay. Rewe, netto, Müller, DM, Karlstads, Restaurants, Bäcker, Brezelstand.... Einzig kleine Imbisse nehmen nur Bargeld. Aber dank der Corona Krise steht an jeder Ladentür „Bitte wenn möglich kontaktlos bezahlen“. Damit kommt das endlich bei jedem im Kopf an. 😊
Ich wäre mir da nicht so sicher. Die meisten werden den ganzen "neumodischen Kram" wieder rausschmeißen sobald sie es können. Auch wenn hier überall von modern, liberal, weltoffen etc pp geschwafelt wird... Deutschland ist abgesehen von einigen Teilen innerhalb einiger Großstädte bis in den Kern rückständig-konservativ.
If my memory isn't failing me, I have seen bakeries (in Germany) switching too/asking for electronic payment during the pandemic but having since switched back to only accepting cash. But maybe I'm mixing up experiences from different bakeries.
The Sparkasse is a cooperative bank - to be more explicit - it's a "Körperschaft Öffentlichen Rechts".
That means:
- they were not allowed to make any profit
- they are also not allowed to make money at several financial markets
- they have a social responsibility and support many local projects
- they have collective wage agreements for their employees
That's all for the good of our entire society.
I'm happy to pay some small fees, for not being a part of an anti social system.
Ask yourself, how other banks pay their bills, if they don't call for fees.
Same here.
I'm using Apple Pay since day one in Germany.
As an IT Consultant, i'm on the road every day. Down to the smallest village, you can pay with ApplePay almost everywhere.
I was a little bit sceptic in Dec. 2018.
I left my credit card at home since march 2019.
As of today, i consider to remove the Giro Card from my wallet as well. The only issue is getting some cash, for the few times i need it (i.e. our company's canteen - yes, you've read right)
Germany had the great advantage, that contactless payment with EC-/Giro-Card was established widely, many years before we got ApplePay and almost all terminals are compatible to AppePay. That means, over night, almost every station that accepts EC-/Girocard payment was able to process ApplePay (as well as GooglePay).
Other countries, even the USA, are still far from that ApplePay coverage we have in Germany.
Yes, there are some bakeries, some restaurants and some hotels, that still don't accept ApplePay, because their terminals don't accept credit card payments (that should work with Sparkasse, as you can use your Giro Card now), or they accept cash only. But they will be fewer and fewer every day.
I never had any mayor issues to pay with ApplePay in Germany...
This is a great move!
Depending on personal shopping habits you can run into merchants not accepting the usual credit cards in Germany quite frequently - especially if you prefer smaller, local merchants which are not associated with bigger chains. They almost always accept Girocard but no other credit or debit card. If you just shop at the larger/chain stores then you can of course get along pretty well without Girocard just by paying with your Master/Visa/Amex credit or debit card. For me it's about ⅓ of the cases where merchants insist on Girocard or cash only - which means that the reach of my possibilities to use Apple Pay were increased by 50% yesterday. That's great!
In numbers:
Girocard is accepted at 870k merchants in Germany (755k contactless) while Master/Visa are accepted at ca. 650k merchants (without any numbers for or distinction of contactless or not).
The cost for the merchant for a Girocard transaction is roughly 1% while (s)he has to pay double for almost all of the other cards. This is the major reason for the advantage in acceptance.
Depending on personal shopping habits you can run into merchants not accepting the usual credit cards in Germany quite frequently - especially if you prefer smaller, local merchants which are not associated with bigger chains. They almost always accept Girocard but no other credit or debit card. If you just shop at the larger/chain stores then you can of course get along pretty well without Girocard just by paying with your Master/Visa/Amex credit or debit card. For me it's about ⅓ of the cases where merchants insist on Girocard or cash only - which means that the reach of my possibilities to use Apple Pay were increased by 50% yesterday. That's great!
In numbers:
Girocard is accepted at 870k merchants in Germany (755k contactless) while Master/Visa are accepted at ca. 650k merchants (without any numbers for or distinction of contactless or not).
The cost for the merchant for a Girocard transaction is roughly 1% while (s)he has to pay double for almost all of the other cards. This is the major reason for the advantage in acceptance.
That is no longer correct, a 2015 EU regulation limits the interbank charge to 0.3% for credit cards and 0.2% for debit cards (with a maximum of 7 cent for the latter, meaning for transactions from 35 Euro upwards, the charge has a fixed cap). Meaning for small amounts the difference isn‘t too relevant anymore.
There are a few small caveats, for once this only applies to Visa and MasterCard (as American Express and Diners use a differently structured banking backend). It also only applies for transactions within the EEA (EU + Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), though my understanding is that Visa and MasterCard have voluntarily agreed to also apply this for purchases made inside the EEA with cards issued in third party countries. It is also a weighted average, which I think means Visa and MasterCard can charge slightly different fees for different country pairs than others.
This relatively low fee cap is a reason why things like the cash back scheme of theApple Card cannot really be replicated in Europe (anymore).
The interchange fee certainly is regulated (within the EU). I am not disputing this at all.
But the interchange fee is only one out of three fees which make up the whole transaction fee for the merchant.
For most major credit- or debit cards the merchant has to pay the scheme fee which goes to the provider of the card scheme like Mastercard/Visa/Amex etc. On top of that the merchant has to pay an acquiring fee which goes to the provider of his payment terminal who collects the funds owed to him by the cardholders who bought something.
The scheme fee and the acquiring fee are not regulated at all.
In total a merchant will end up paying roughly between 1.5% and 3.5% for major credit and debit cards with very few exceptions for some debit cards (like Maestro/V-Pay) at around 1% - but only in certain, limited cases. The German girocard - which can only be used in Germany - will cost him in almost all cases ca. 1% transaction fee.
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That second fee doesn’t go to the credit card companies and shouldn’t vary much between debit and credit cards. I’d compare that more to the costs associated with handling cash. And there is competition between payment terminal providers that the merchant can choose between, whereas in regard to the credit card companies the merchant doesn’t really have a choice (besides not accepting any credit cards).
And before the EU regulation, those interchange fees were noticeable higher, I remember something in the range of 2% in Europe.
Please tell me where the scheme fee is going to!
As far as I know the scheme fee goes to the provider of the card scheme - which in the western world is predominantly Mastercard and Visa as they provide the infrastructure under which participating institutions can issue cards on the consumer side or provide acquiring services on the merchants side.
A very good and simple explanation of the fees for card payments can be found here:
A simple explanation of fees in the payment card industry
I wrote a piece last month explaining how the payment card industry works. I talked about the various actors (acquirers, issuers, schemes, merchants, etc) and pointed out how weird it is that ever…
gendal.me
The (U.S. debit card) example in that link has a 1.99% + 25c fee. Of that 1.6% and 15c go towards the 'interchange fee'. And it is exactly the interchange fee that the EU regulations cap at 0.2% for debit cards (and 0.3% for credit cards). The article also points out that it is this interchange fee that funds the loyalty schemes.Please tell me where the scheme fee is going to!
As far as I know the scheme fee goes to the provider of the card scheme - which in the western world is predominantly Mastercard and Visa as they provide the infrastructure under which participating institutions can issue cards on the consumer side or provide acquiring services on the merchants side.
A very good and simple explanation of the fees for card payments can be found here:
A simple explanation of fees in the payment card industry
I wrote a piece last month explaining how the payment card industry works. I talked about the various actors (acquirers, issuers, schemes, merchants, etc) and pointed out how weird it is that ever…gendal.me
The benefits of the loyalty schemes are very hard to assess for the customer as it depends on so many variables that also keep changing over time. Something like the direct cashback that Apple Card offers is the most straightforward way for customers to compare things. But if all card issuers offered direct cashback, there would be little point in this whole charade and just capping those interchange fees would be the simpler solution.