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European countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands are at the forefront of submitting themselves to a cashless economy, giving control of the payments infras

• the-dude 7y ago
  In NL creditcards are not very popular, but paying 'by PIN' is. The network is owned by the Dutch banks, which also provide the online payment platform iDeal. The fees are low and fixed. Offline, between 15cts and a couple of cents ( I don't know how low for the big retailers, 5cts ? ) The online fees are a bit higher, starting at 29cts. There are no variable fees. There is no 'refund' or 'insurance'. Lots of shops do not accept creditcards ( I know of no big retailer which does ).
  • martin_a 7y ago
    The same is true for Germany. We have a vast number of different systems for cashless payment, with every bank trying to push its own system. It's not like Visa and Master Card are the two major players.
    • the-dude 7y ago
      Except we don't have a vast number of systems. We have 1.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • martin_a 7y ago
        Talking about NL or DE?
        • whereistimbo 7y ago
          NL of course. It's the same commenter.
• mg74 7y ago
  Iceland is very much at this forefront. The payments infrastructure is operated by the local banks (directly or indirectly), not by Visa/Mastercard.
  • C1sc0cat 7y ago
    They Trust the Icelandic banks that much after the recent fiasco's
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • mg74 7y ago
      Throughout the entire 2008 crisis, the payment networks never stopped functioning. Not for a day, not for a minute.
• lostmyoldone 7y ago
  It's not seen as a big deal here in Sweden, partially because of history, and partially because of banking regulations, with some of those being EU regulations. Note that I don't believe having companies - especially large ones that isn't primarily banks - in control of payments of any kind is a good idea, I think it's a terrible idea. Yes, us Swedes use cards a lot, and almost every card in Sweden has Visa or MasterCard stamped on it. Most are debit cards, and the well know logos weren't there to begin with. Initially, almost all cards were debit cards issued by the various Swedish banks. Banks that people used to trust back then. While those payment systems are technically private, they aren't perceived as such. Maybe because of the banks, maybe because they are regulated quite heavily, but people generally have confidence they won't be cut off by the bank. Personally I don't know anyone, or have heard of anyone getting denied a debit card. While that's not a useful statistic, it shows why people might perceive it the way they do. Since 2017 the laws implementating the then new EU banking directives demands that the banks must offer any basic payment solution/product to everyone if they offer it to anyone. There are some exceptions, mostly regarding money and banking fraud, but it seems to be somewhat rare in practice, at least it doesn't seem to have garnered much attention in news. There are however talks of introducing some kind of legal tender laws, as it is currently possible to get into a situation where you have money, but can't pay. Which is obviously terrible.