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In Europe, the availability of contactless payment has been growing like crazy. I live in Eeastern-Europe and even here I can pay contactless almost everywhere.

In Europe, the availability of contactless payment has been growing like crazy. I live in Eeastern-Europe and even here I can pay contactless almost everywhere. And with almost everywhere, I really mean almost everywhere. Even really tiny stores tucked away in a corner that didn't even support card payment at all until contactless was on the rise. And with contactless, I mean, you just tap your card on a reader and that's it. I am not really sure why I would want to do this with my phone. I'd have to take it out of my pocket, unlock it to approve the transactions etc. Instead I just put my card on a read for half a second and I can walk away. In my home country (Western-Europe), some supermarket chains even support complete self-checkout. You just grab what you need, scan your items with a handheld scanner and then pay contactless at one of the payment terminals and then you're good to go. Can somebody explain why I'd prefer using my phone over this system?

slobotron 9y ago
If your phone has a fingerprint reader, I find that it's even easier to pull out the phone and tap, than to try and get a card out of your wallet. Plus, feels more secure since you need to authenticate, vs anyone with your card can just tap it. (sure, usually you are not liable if you report lost credit card quickly) What I'd really like to see next is for proper electronic receipts to be transferred to the phone, vs just the transaction total.
what_ever 9y ago
So that you don't have to carry all of your credits cards everywhere. Credit Card rewards are much better in US than in Europe and it makes sense to use certain credit card to make certain kind of transaction. e.g. one of my card given 3% cashback at restaurants but only 1% at grocery stores. While other gives 2% at grocery stores. Plus, if you lose your card/wallet it is a pain to change numbers everywhere. While you don't need to do that if you lose your phone as real card numbers are not stored in the pay apps. Besides whoever finds the phone needs to go pass your lock screen to get anywhere near that.
- chrisper 9y ago
  In Europe not only credit cards are contactless, but also debit cards. Furthermore, in some countries you have to carry an ID at all times, so you would have your wallet with you anyways. Regarding safety: contactless only works for rather small sums. Anything above that requires a pin.
  - photonios 9y ago
    Indeed. I only use my credit card outside the EU.
- photonios 9y ago
  As another comment here points out. People don't really use credit cards here. Everyone has a debit card which supports contactless payments without a pin up to €20. Which is enough for most use cases. Even better, in the country where I live, almost all debit cards have a number and a Cv2 code. So you can pay online at any place that accepts credit cards. Transactions are free and instant. Within a second of paying I can see the transaction in the mobile app of my bank. Hell, it sends notifications for every transaction if you want.
  - hadrien01 9y ago
    > Even better, in the country where I live, almost all debit cards have a number and a Cv2 code. You don't have this in every country?
    - photonios 9y ago
      Not in my home country. All banks give out Maestro cards. While the country I live in right now gives out Visa Electron cards.
chrisper 9y ago
You would not. But in the US paying with card is crazy "slow," especially with the new chip.
- lucideer 9y ago
  > in the US paying with card is crazy "slow," especially with the new chip. Does anyone know why this is? Chip cards have been widespread in Europe for over a decade (in some places they've been around over 20 years). As pleasantly convenient as the new tap cards are, I've never found chip to be slow as long as I can remember. Sometimes a wireless terminal will have momentary connection problems but this is rare enough to be acknowledged by the shop as a clear technical fault and apologies given for the delay.
  - ygra 9y ago
    IME this mostly depends on the terminal and/or how the store chooses to handle transactions. Some terminals see to first need to establish some kind of connection to a server during the transaction, which can fail or take time. Some seem always connected or they batch the transactions and perform them at some point in the future. (Could be that batching cannot be done anymore, though.) E.g. at Aldi here (Southern Germany) paying with card including entering the PIN isn't really slower than paying cash (and the Aldi cashiers are crazy fast in handling cash). At other stores the card terminals seem awfully slow, though.
    - lucideer 9y ago
      As far as I had assumed (don't have any in-depth knowledge though), all chip systems required a challenge response with a server, so this couldn't be batched I don't think. I can imagine it being related to internet connection speed if it was a minor delay, but people seem to describe really significant delay, even in major US cities where you'd imagine that shouldn't be a problem.
    - acdha 9y ago
      I’m used to the dialup-style delays but these are longer and happen at places with new equipment and high transaction volume, and they seemed to be doing real-time transactions before because even the magstripe transactions would immediately trigger the push notification to my phone. I’ve been assuming this is some new, unoptimized codepath kludged into a legacy system because it’s very common but doesn’t seem to affect new products – e.g. Square systems are always a fraction of a second. The one part I can’t explain is why at the subset of places which support both NFC and chips, the NFC transactions are at least as fast as magstripe when the chip transactions are so much slower.
tonyhb 9y ago
You also have to take your card out of your pocket, right? So, it's altogether not much different in terms of "experience", but the phone has a nicer UI.
- photonios 9y ago
  That's the thing I was trying to say. The card doesn't have a UI. With the phone, the fingerprint or facial recognition might fail etc. With the card, it cannot go wrong, you just tap your card on the reader.
  - Godel_unicode 9y ago
    It might fail, but it probably won't. Also your card might pick up static and not interface with the terminal. Or you might break it by bending it in your pocket (happened to me a while back). You say there's no UI for cards, but that's only the case for transactions under €20. With phone, no PIN required for transactions over X dollars. One motion for everything. Then add that you don't need to carry a wallet if you have phone payment. Throw your phone in a sleeve (or use a watch!) and go running, stop for your smoothie on the way home. Finally, since it's a phone I can call it when it's missing or my watch will tell me if it's in the Uber I just got out of. Even works when intoxicated!
    - artworx 9y ago
      In Romania, a bank started issuing watches that function as contactless credit cards last year. https://embeddedsecuritynews.com/2017/06/romanian-lender-introduces-contactless-watch-that-works-as-banking-card/ https://embeddedsecuritynews.com/2017/06/romanian-lender-int...
      - photonios 9y ago
        I live in Romania. I got one. It's been great!
    - photonios 9y ago
bitmapbrother 9y ago
>Can somebody explain why I'd prefer using my phone over this system? Your credit card number is never seen by the merchant. A lot of credit card thefts are done by employee's lifting the card number details during a transaction[1]. With Google Pay / Apple Pay the credit card number is replaced with a one time token that is only valid for that transaction. [1]https://youtu.be/qgu2NVrfRV4?t=44s https://youtu.be/qgu2NVrfRV4?t=44s
- staz 9y ago
  In Europe we have chips and PIN on cards, most transactions are useless without them so you can't do much with just the card number. Though some transactions on the internet can be done without them but that's rare and diminishing, and that probably not possible for the contactless cards
AndrewDucker 9y ago
Because I have my phone in my hand quite a lot, but I don't have my credit card in my hand at all. To use my credit card I'd have to get my wallet out, find the right card, drag it out of its slot, etc. To use my phone I reach into my pocket, grab the only phone-shaped thing in there, and while moving it towards the terminal put my thumb on the sensor. Takes far less time.

slobotron 9y ago

If your phone has a fingerprint reader, I find that it's even easier to pull out the phone and tap, than to try and get a card out of your wallet. Plus, feels more secure since you need to authenticate, vs anyone with your card can just tap it. (sure, usually you are not liable if you report lost credit card quickly) What I'd really like to see next is for proper electronic receipts to be transferred to the phone, vs just the transaction total.

what_ever 9y ago

So that you don't have to carry all of your credits cards everywhere. Credit Card rewards are much better in US than in Europe and it makes sense to use certain credit card to make certain kind of transaction. e.g. one of my card given 3% cashback at restaurants but only 1% at grocery stores. While other gives 2% at grocery stores. Plus, if you lose your card/wallet it is a pain to change numbers everywhere. While you don't need to do that if you lose your phone as real card numbers are not stored in the pay apps. Besides whoever finds the phone needs to go pass your lock screen to get anywhere near that.

chrisper 9y ago
In Europe not only credit cards are contactless, but also debit cards. Furthermore, in some countries you have to carry an ID at all times, so you would have your wallet with you anyways. Regarding safety: contactless only works for rather small sums. Anything above that requires a pin.
- photonios 9y ago
  Indeed. I only use my credit card outside the EU.
photonios 9y ago
As another comment here points out. People don't really use credit cards here. Everyone has a debit card which supports contactless payments without a pin up to €20. Which is enough for most use cases. Even better, in the country where I live, almost all debit cards have a number and a Cv2 code. So you can pay online at any place that accepts credit cards. Transactions are free and instant. Within a second of paying I can see the transaction in the mobile app of my bank. Hell, it sends notifications for every transaction if you want.
- hadrien01 9y ago
  > Even better, in the country where I live, almost all debit cards have a number and a Cv2 code. You don't have this in every country?
  - photonios 9y ago
    Not in my home country. All banks give out Maestro cards. While the country I live in right now gives out Visa Electron cards.

chrisper 9y ago

You would not. But in the US paying with card is crazy "slow," especially with the new chip.

lucideer 9y ago
> in the US paying with card is crazy "slow," especially with the new chip. Does anyone know why this is? Chip cards have been widespread in Europe for over a decade (in some places they've been around over 20 years). As pleasantly convenient as the new tap cards are, I've never found chip to be slow as long as I can remember. Sometimes a wireless terminal will have momentary connection problems but this is rare enough to be acknowledged by the shop as a clear technical fault and apologies given for the delay.
- ygra 9y ago
  IME this mostly depends on the terminal and/or how the store chooses to handle transactions. Some terminals see to first need to establish some kind of connection to a server during the transaction, which can fail or take time. Some seem always connected or they batch the transactions and perform them at some point in the future. (Could be that batching cannot be done anymore, though.) E.g. at Aldi here (Southern Germany) paying with card including entering the PIN isn't really slower than paying cash (and the Aldi cashiers are crazy fast in handling cash). At other stores the card terminals seem awfully slow, though.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    As far as I had assumed (don't have any in-depth knowledge though), all chip systems required a challenge response with a server, so this couldn't be batched I don't think. I can imagine it being related to internet connection speed if it was a minor delay, but people seem to describe really significant delay, even in major US cities where you'd imagine that shouldn't be a problem.
  - acdha 9y ago
    I’m used to the dialup-style delays but these are longer and happen at places with new equipment and high transaction volume, and they seemed to be doing real-time transactions before because even the magstripe transactions would immediately trigger the push notification to my phone. I’ve been assuming this is some new, unoptimized codepath kludged into a legacy system because it’s very common but doesn’t seem to affect new products – e.g. Square systems are always a fraction of a second. The one part I can’t explain is why at the subset of places which support both NFC and chips, the NFC transactions are at least as fast as magstripe when the chip transactions are so much slower.

tonyhb 9y ago

You also have to take your card out of your pocket, right? So, it's altogether not much different in terms of "experience", but the phone has a nicer UI.

photonios 9y ago
That's the thing I was trying to say. The card doesn't have a UI. With the phone, the fingerprint or facial recognition might fail etc. With the card, it cannot go wrong, you just tap your card on the reader.
- Godel_unicode 9y ago
  It might fail, but it probably won't. Also your card might pick up static and not interface with the terminal. Or you might break it by bending it in your pocket (happened to me a while back). You say there's no UI for cards, but that's only the case for transactions under €20. With phone, no PIN required for transactions over X dollars. One motion for everything. Then add that you don't need to carry a wallet if you have phone payment. Throw your phone in a sleeve (or use a watch!) and go running, stop for your smoothie on the way home. Finally, since it's a phone I can call it when it's missing or my watch will tell me if it's in the Uber I just got out of. Even works when intoxicated!
  - artworx 9y ago
    In Romania, a bank started issuing watches that function as contactless credit cards last year. https://embeddedsecuritynews.com/2017/06/romanian-lender-introduces-contactless-watch-that-works-as-banking-card/ https://embeddedsecuritynews.com/2017/06/romanian-lender-int...
    - photonios 9y ago
      I live in Romania. I got one. It's been great!
  - photonios 9y ago

bitmapbrother 9y ago

>Can somebody explain why I'd prefer using my phone over this system? Your credit card number is never seen by the merchant. A lot of credit card thefts are done by employee's lifting the card number details during a transaction[1]. With Google Pay / Apple Pay the credit card number is replaced with a one time token that is only valid for that transaction. [1]https://youtu.be/qgu2NVrfRV4?t=44s https://youtu.be/qgu2NVrfRV4?t=44s

staz 9y ago
In Europe we have chips and PIN on cards, most transactions are useless without them so you can't do much with just the card number. Though some transactions on the internet can be done without them but that's rare and diminishing, and that probably not possible for the contactless cards

AndrewDucker 9y ago

Because I have my phone in my hand quite a lot, but I don't have my credit card in my hand at all. To use my credit card I'd have to get my wallet out, find the right card, drag it out of its slot, etc. To use my phone I reach into my pocket, grab the only phone-shaped thing in there, and while moving it towards the terminal put my thumb on the sensor. Takes far less time.