4 ms·

What's the problem with card payments in germany for non-germans?

by bosie 6y ago

rconti 6y ago
Credit cards are not widely accepted in Germany. Germans generally use cash or EC/Maesto debit cards, and you can't get an EC card if you're not an EU resident with an EU bank account (which can be hard for Americans, and, to a lesser extent, any foreigner, I'm sure). I used to have a Maestro-branded debit card (in the US) when I was younger. I have no idea if it's the same system and/or if they're compatible. I checked my wallet and my current debit card has no Maestro branding. I've more than once found myself halfway through a meal before realizing that I might not have a way to pay for it. https://www.german-way.com/germanys-cash-culture-geld-stinkt-nicht/ https://www.german-way.com/germanys-cash-culture-geld-stinkt...
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  We need the Google Fi equivalent of credit cards. Even with vaunted "international credit cards", there are still use cases where they do not work, which seem country-specific, and finding information about what is actually going on under the hood has been difficult for this layperson.
  - rconti 6y ago
    With the caveat that I've only travelled in the Western world, credit cards really are almost universally accepted, Germany aside. Obviously, the smaller the merchant, and the smaller the country/town, the less likely. As an American, a particularly odd experience was at a shop in Peru, where they only accepted MasterCard and not Visa. These days we're so used to them being interchangeable, it had never even crossed my mind. Between my wife and I, we had 5 or 6 Visa debit/credit cards, and 0 MasterCard.
    - yourapostasy 6y ago
      Exceptions abound in Asia, though there are far fewer exceptions in the West. For example in Taiwan, in their online grocery ecosystem all the market participants use the same kind of SMS verification step that is intercepted at the card network stage (the issuing bank doesn't see this activity). So Visa and MasterCard both generate the challenge, but US card holders do not see this, and US customer support does not know what to do on the back end to support it. I know somewhere, there is some kind of setting that interfaces with for example, Visa International, but only a credit card industry domain expert with the lingo would know the right words. I suspect I need a Chip and PIN EMV card issued, and it drops to SMS for certain online transaction types, but that's just a WAG at this time. I've run into similar exceptions elsewhere in transactions that require some kind of national ID number tied to a delivery address for higher-value orders. The types of risk profiles associated with many new use cases is fracturing credit card handling, but the use cases international travelers encounter is so small it isn't worth addressing just for that demographic. However, as the Net continues to bleed international transactions across borders (AliBaba is just the beginning), I think this will be a very lucrative market for the first-mover to do the Uber-like Herculean work of addressing every jurisdiction's concerns to put them all under a next-generation credit card.
- addandsubtract 6y ago
  I've been paying with my phone using Google Pay connected to PayPal for the past year. It works basically everywhere, except for places that only take cash.
- gambiting 6y ago
  The problem I had specifically was that the app expected a German billing address to add a card, which obviously I couldn't provide.
- jackson1442 6y ago
  MasterCard owns Maestro, so would MasterCards work there?
  - markus92 6y ago
    No, they don't.

What's the problem with card payments in germany for non-germans?

by bosie 6y ago

What's the problem with card payments in germany for non-germans?

Credit cards are not widely accepted in Germany. Germans generally use cash or EC/Maesto debit cards, and you can't get an EC card if you're not an EU resident with an EU bank account (which can be hard for Americans, and, to a lesser extent, any foreigner, I'm sure). I used to have a Maestro-branded debit card (in the US) when I was younger. I have no idea if it's the same system and/or if they're compatible. I checked my wallet and my current debit card has no Maestro branding. I've more than once found myself halfway through a meal before realizing that I might not have a way to pay for it. https://www.german-way.com/germanys-cash-culture-geld-stinkt-nicht/ https://www.german-way.com/germanys-cash-culture-geld-stinkt...

yourapostasy 6y ago
We need the Google Fi equivalent of credit cards. Even with vaunted "international credit cards", there are still use cases where they do not work, which seem country-specific, and finding information about what is actually going on under the hood has been difficult for this layperson.
- rconti 6y ago
  With the caveat that I've only travelled in the Western world, credit cards really are almost universally accepted, Germany aside. Obviously, the smaller the merchant, and the smaller the country/town, the less likely. As an American, a particularly odd experience was at a shop in Peru, where they only accepted MasterCard and not Visa. These days we're so used to them being interchangeable, it had never even crossed my mind. Between my wife and I, we had 5 or 6 Visa debit/credit cards, and 0 MasterCard.
  - yourapostasy 6y ago
    Exceptions abound in Asia, though there are far fewer exceptions in the West. For example in Taiwan, in their online grocery ecosystem all the market participants use the same kind of SMS verification step that is intercepted at the card network stage (the issuing bank doesn't see this activity). So Visa and MasterCard both generate the challenge, but US card holders do not see this, and US customer support does not know what to do on the back end to support it. I know somewhere, there is some kind of setting that interfaces with for example, Visa International, but only a credit card industry domain expert with the lingo would know the right words. I suspect I need a Chip and PIN EMV card issued, and it drops to SMS for certain online transaction types, but that's just a WAG at this time. I've run into similar exceptions elsewhere in transactions that require some kind of national ID number tied to a delivery address for higher-value orders. The types of risk profiles associated with many new use cases is fracturing credit card handling, but the use cases international travelers encounter is so small it isn't worth addressing just for that demographic. However, as the Net continues to bleed international transactions across borders (AliBaba is just the beginning), I think this will be a very lucrative market for the first-mover to do the Uber-like Herculean work of addressing every jurisdiction's concerns to put them all under a next-generation credit card.
addandsubtract 6y ago
I've been paying with my phone using Google Pay connected to PayPal for the past year. It works basically everywhere, except for places that only take cash.
gambiting 6y ago
The problem I had specifically was that the app expected a German billing address to add a card, which obviously I couldn't provide.
jackson1442 6y ago
MasterCard owns Maestro, so would MasterCards work there?
- markus92 6y ago
  No, they don't.