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> All Dutch banks now advertise to install Google pay for wireless payments. That sounds like a very big mistake to me. And a missed opportunity: in some count

by palata 2y ago

> All Dutch banks now advertise to install Google pay for wireless payments. That sounds like a very big mistake to me. And a missed opportunity: in some countries, banked work together to develop their own systems. People can send money to each other and pay everywhere with a small app that is not BigTech from the US. I think there should be such an app in every country; you don't want your payment system to fully depend on US companies.

argsnd 2y ago
Generally what you're describing is in countries that don't have widespread adoption of NFC payments. In Europe almost every country has standardised NFC payments so Apple/Google Pay is the most frictionless option for users.
- palata 2y ago
  Switzerland (which is not a country that doesn't know how to do banking :-) ) uses Twint (a Swiss app) with QR codes instead of NFC. To me it's better than NFC (it works with printed QR codes, e.g. on parking payment machines). I don't know anyone in Switzerland using Apple/Google Pay, which IMO is a national success.
  - argsnd 2y ago
    Switzerland is very backwards on retail banking actually. For example money transfers between bank accounts cost money, aren't instant, and can't be done on weekends.
sushibowl 2y ago
Dutch banks did this, it is called iDeal: https://www.ideal.nl/en/ https://www.ideal.nl/en/ iDeal is ubiquitous in The Netherlands for individuals sending money to each other, and for online payments. However it does not support NFC payments in physical stores. Dutch banks decided to go with Google/Apple wallet for this. I believe in the longer term Wero https://wero-wallet.eu/ https://wero-wallet.eu/ (and potentially the digital euro https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...) is supposed to take over this usecase in the EU.
- palata 2y ago
  That sounds good! Instead of NFC, they could use QR codes. All the payment terminals can show a QR code, and it's even possible to print a QR code on a piece of paper without the need for the terminal. Twint does that. They started trying to make it "seamless" with NFC, but couldn't do it because of Apple (maybe now with the DMA it may change) and went for some kind of weird bluetooth stuff. Nobody used it. Then they moved to QR codes, and it quickly got very popular. Everybody understands QR codes. No need to know whether your phone supports NFC or not, no need to go check if NFC is enabled in the settings, nothing. Everybody understands that they need to scan the QR code with their camera, period. Seems perfect to me.
  - jonkoops 2y ago
    > they could use QR codes It already does for web purchases, so there is no reason it could not. Not sure why this is not more commonplace.
dzikimarian 2y ago
Banks do that for p2p payments and e-commerce (like iDeal mentioned by sibling comment or BLIK in Poland). For physical transactions there's barrier of hardware and network effect - everybody has card terminal. Users expect near 100% acceptance for them to use payment method daily. If you consider creating own NFC payment app instead of Google/Apple Pay - that's actually possible, but more expensive and often disliked by the users due to inability to easily switch between cards issued by different apps.
- codethief 2y ago
  > If you consider creating own NFC payment app instead of Google/Apple Pay - that's actually possible Is it? Last time I checked, Apple & Google were also interfacing with banks on the server side, i.e. banks had to integrate with Apple/Google specifically. I'd love to be wrong, though.
  - palata 2y ago
    I believe that for a long time, Apple was preventing the use of NFC (or was it just for payments?). The EU Digital Markets Act is supposed to prevent them from doing that, as part of the "interoperability" part. And I think the DMA is great in that sense.
    - codethief 2y ago
      True, on iOS access to the NFC chip has been a additional blocker. But on Android apps have been able to use the NFC chip just fine and it's still not that easy to write a generic "wallet" app (that's compatible with all banks & cards), see my previous comment.
      - charcircuit 2y ago
        >But on Android apps have been able to use the NFC chip just fine The last time I looked at it, it was not possible because Android doesn't let apps control the uid that gets used for NFC.
nebulous1 2y ago
I agree, but in this banking apps (around me) use the Integrity API anyway.

by palata 2y ago

argsnd 2y ago

Generally what you're describing is in countries that don't have widespread adoption of NFC payments. In Europe almost every country has standardised NFC payments so Apple/Google Pay is the most frictionless option for users.

palata 2y ago
Switzerland (which is not a country that doesn't know how to do banking :-) ) uses Twint (a Swiss app) with QR codes instead of NFC. To me it's better than NFC (it works with printed QR codes, e.g. on parking payment machines). I don't know anyone in Switzerland using Apple/Google Pay, which IMO is a national success.
- argsnd 2y ago
  Switzerland is very backwards on retail banking actually. For example money transfers between bank accounts cost money, aren't instant, and can't be done on weekends.

sushibowl 2y ago

Dutch banks did this, it is called iDeal: https://www.ideal.nl/en/ https://www.ideal.nl/en/ iDeal is ubiquitous in The Netherlands for individuals sending money to each other, and for online payments. However it does not support NFC payments in physical stores. Dutch banks decided to go with Google/Apple wallet for this. I believe in the longer term Wero https://wero-wallet.eu/ https://wero-wallet.eu/ (and potentially the digital euro https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...) is supposed to take over this usecase in the EU.

palata 2y ago
That sounds good! Instead of NFC, they could use QR codes. All the payment terminals can show a QR code, and it's even possible to print a QR code on a piece of paper without the need for the terminal. Twint does that. They started trying to make it "seamless" with NFC, but couldn't do it because of Apple (maybe now with the DMA it may change) and went for some kind of weird bluetooth stuff. Nobody used it. Then they moved to QR codes, and it quickly got very popular. Everybody understands QR codes. No need to know whether your phone supports NFC or not, no need to go check if NFC is enabled in the settings, nothing. Everybody understands that they need to scan the QR code with their camera, period. Seems perfect to me.
- jonkoops 2y ago
  > they could use QR codes It already does for web purchases, so there is no reason it could not. Not sure why this is not more commonplace.

dzikimarian 2y ago

Banks do that for p2p payments and e-commerce (like iDeal mentioned by sibling comment or BLIK in Poland). For physical transactions there's barrier of hardware and network effect - everybody has card terminal. Users expect near 100% acceptance for them to use payment method daily. If you consider creating own NFC payment app instead of Google/Apple Pay - that's actually possible, but more expensive and often disliked by the users due to inability to easily switch between cards issued by different apps.

codethief 2y ago
> If you consider creating own NFC payment app instead of Google/Apple Pay - that's actually possible Is it? Last time I checked, Apple & Google were also interfacing with banks on the server side, i.e. banks had to integrate with Apple/Google specifically. I'd love to be wrong, though.
- palata 2y ago
  I believe that for a long time, Apple was preventing the use of NFC (or was it just for payments?). The EU Digital Markets Act is supposed to prevent them from doing that, as part of the "interoperability" part. And I think the DMA is great in that sense.
  - codethief 2y ago
    True, on iOS access to the NFC chip has been a additional blocker. But on Android apps have been able to use the NFC chip just fine and it's still not that easy to write a generic "wallet" app (that's compatible with all banks & cards), see my previous comment.
    - charcircuit 2y ago
      >But on Android apps have been able to use the NFC chip just fine The last time I looked at it, it was not possible because Android doesn't let apps control the uid that gets used for NFC.

nebulous1 2y ago

I agree, but in this banking apps (around me) use the Integrity API anyway.