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From Finnish perspective: Banks are mandated to provide basic accounts and Visa Electron equivalent cards to anyone applying. This is because social support and

From Finnish perspective: Banks are mandated to provide basic accounts and Visa Electron equivalent cards to anyone applying. This is because social support and pensions are paid to bank accounts instead of as cash.

hocuspocus 8y ago
It's a EU directive: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr...
gowld 8y ago
In USA debit cards are a common way to receive benefits, but there's no bank account attached. A bank account wouldn't add much though, except perhaps a persistent long-lived account number which might be useful.
clubm8 8y ago
That law sounds good, but does Finland have the same issue as the US with regard to fraud protection? In case you're not familiar, US debit cards are tied to a bank account, but weirdly can be used without a PIN if they are run as a credit card anywhere that takes MC/Visa/whatever-the-issuer-is. However, the charge is deducted immediately from your account as would a debit charge. This means if there's fraud, even if you are refunded eventually you will be without access to money for some period of time. The easy fix is to withdraw some cash for day to day stuff from a trusted bank ATM rather than constantly swipe your card. Even if the government provides you a no frills bank account, the fraud risk would make many prefer to use their card as little as possible in the USA.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  VISA Electron (and I believe Maestro, the MasterCard equivalent) cards only support "online" transactions, so they're able to reject transactions without a PIN, without enough money in the account, etc. They don't even have embossed numbers so you can't run them in one of those old carbon copy machines. This is why they are issued to people who are underage or a credit risk since they can't run an offline transaction without coverage in the account.

hocuspocus 8y ago

It's a EU directive: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/bank-accounts-eu/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr...

gowld 8y ago

In USA debit cards are a common way to receive benefits, but there's no bank account attached. A bank account wouldn't add much though, except perhaps a persistent long-lived account number which might be useful.

clubm8 8y ago

That law sounds good, but does Finland have the same issue as the US with regard to fraud protection? In case you're not familiar, US debit cards are tied to a bank account, but weirdly can be used without a PIN if they are run as a credit card anywhere that takes MC/Visa/whatever-the-issuer-is. However, the charge is deducted immediately from your account as would a debit charge. This means if there's fraud, even if you are refunded eventually you will be without access to money for some period of time. The easy fix is to withdraw some cash for day to day stuff from a trusted bank ATM rather than constantly swipe your card. Even if the government provides you a no frills bank account, the fraud risk would make many prefer to use their card as little as possible in the USA.

kalleboo 8y ago
VISA Electron (and I believe Maestro, the MasterCard equivalent) cards only support "online" transactions, so they're able to reject transactions without a PIN, without enough money in the account, etc. They don't even have embossed numbers so you can't run them in one of those old carbon copy machines. This is why they are issued to people who are underage or a credit risk since they can't run an offline transaction without coverage in the account.