Dutch Money

Johannes Kleese wrote:
Am 31.01.2011 22:47, schrieb Ken Blake:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:13:53 +0100, "Tim C."
wrote:

And they are not accepted everywhere. It depends on the country but the ATM
cards are the accepted way of cashless payment here, credit cards hardly
get a look in.

Where is your "here"? In the USA, it's only very rarely that my credit
card isn't accepted. And I can't remember ever being somewhere where a
debit card would be accepted but not a credit card.

Well, Germany has had a standard debit card system for decades, based on
the old Eurocheque card ("ec card"). That makes credit cards almost useless.

Eurocheques existed from '72 (actually '68) until 2002 and came with an
ec card for identification. As the name indicates, Eurocheques were
valid and guaranteed throughout (Western) Europe.

Around the mid-60s German banks started to offer transactional accounts
for everyone, the Girokonto. I'd guess just ten years later almost
no-one received wages in cash or as a cheque anymore, or payed his bills
this way. You can send money to any other Girokonto and, even more
important, give others access to yours (direct debit). Just tell your
landlord or utilities company your account number and they'll
conveniently charge the monthly amount from your account. Same for
mailorder companies and whatever else.
If you had to pay someone directly, you used cash or a Eurocheque.

With the first ATMs the ec card became an ATM card to access the Girokonto.
In 1991, the ec card became the standard German debitcard (renaming the
ec in ec card from Eurocheque to "electronic cash"), linked to the
Girokonto as well, and recently renamed to Girocard.
Since the ec card/Girocard holds the owner's account number, too, you
can pay by direct debit.
In 1996, a fourth function was added, the Geldkarte, basically an
electronic purse: No authorization, money is sort of stored on-card.

To sum it up, we have a number of card payment options in Germany:

Type - Costs for merchant -
Girocard - 0.3%, at least 8 cent - payment guaranteed
Geldkarte - 0.3%, at least 1 cent - payment guaranteed
Direct debit - none - payment not guaranteed
Credit cards - 2% - 4% - ?

No surprise, credit cards are not accepted everywhere in Germany, but
the Girocard is.

I've never had difficulty paying with a Mastercard or Visa in Germany. Are
you trying to claim that cards from non-euro countries are rejected?
Unsinn!
--
Erilar, biblioholic medievalist with iPad

On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 09:49:33 +0100, Martin wrote:

On Tue, 1 Feb 2011 01:28:05 +0000 (UTC), David Hatunen
wrote:

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:37:23 +0100, Martin wrote:

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 22:04:02 +0000 (UTC), David Hatunen
wrote:

On Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:16:30 +0100, Tim C. wrote:

On Sun, 30 Jan 2011 02:16:54 +0000 (UTC), Erilar wrote in post :
news:1554639098318046466.999469drache-

:

Martin wrote:

Of course you pay more to have a credit card.

Not if you have the sense to pay it off every month.

Then one of the 3 main advantages of a CC over a DC is reduced to
almost null.

I'm not sure what your 3 main advantages are, but with a credit card I
can notify the issuer to stop payment to a vendor if I have a dispute
with them about a purchase. This isn't possible with a debit or ATM
card and the vendor already has your money.

Also, with a credit card I can pay for something far exceeding the
amount in my bank account and only need to replenish the money,
possibly from another account, before I pay the monthly statement.

And, of course, there are many points of purchase that may not accept
a debit or ATM card for payment.

In the USA. This RTE.

So noted. So what's your point? Are you claiming there are *no* vendors
in Europe that will not accept debt cards although they accept credit
cards?

In the Netherlands almost every retailer accepts a debit card. The same
is not true about credit cards.

That really doesn't have much to do with what I asked: "Are you claiming
there are *no* vendors in Europe that will not accept debt cards
although they accept credit cards?" Or maybe "almost every retailer"
means you are agreeing with me.

I also said: " ... there are many points of purchase that may not accept
a debit or ATM card for payment." I suppose we could bicker over how many
constitutes "many".

--
Dave Hatunen, Tucson, Arizona, out where the cacti grow

Jack Campin wrote:

I also said: " ... there are many points of purchase that may not accept
a debit or ATM card for payment." I suppose we could bicker over how many
constitutes "many".

Every railway station in the UK enough for you?

I only ever use a debit card at UK railway stations.

--
(*) of the royal duchy of city south and deansgate
www.davidhorne.net (email address on website)
"[Do you think the world learned anything from the first
world war?] No. They never learn." -Harry Patch (1898-2009)

On Tue, 1 Feb 2011 22:12:48 +0000 (UTC), Erilar wrote in post :

:


In the Netherlands almost every retailer accepts a debit card. The same is not
true about credit cards.

In other words you(plural) are telling travellers to avoid your countries
if they want to use foreign(US for instance) credit cards?

No, just that they should be aware that they may not be able to pay for
everything they want with a CC. Can you not read?

--
Tim C.
I was reading the obituary column in the paper the other day and it said
Mars Bar,
packet of Rolos, Double decker.... then I realised that in fact I was
reading the a bit chewy column.

On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 23:29:53 +0100, Martin wrote in post :
:

On Tue, 1 Feb 2011 13:50:08 +0100, "Tim C." wrote:

On Tue, 01 Feb 2011 09:54:37 +0100, Martin wrote in post :
:

You can carry cash credit on the chip in NL, although few do.

Same here, I usually have about €20 on it for parking meters etc. as it
saves fiddling about with change.

I read that it is going to stop in NL.

It hasn't really caught on here as much as the suppliers hoped I think. it
was supposed to replace cash for many small transactions, but the fact that
everyone has a Bankomat(ATM) card anyway and the businesses need a machine
and link it hardly makes sense, hence it's only useful for some
parking-meters. Not much of a reason to use it. I expect it'll fold here in
a few years too.

--
Tim C.
I was reading the obituary column in the paper the other day and it said
Mars Bar,
packet of Rolos, Double decker.... then I realised that in fact I was
reading the a bit chewy column.

Erilar wrote:
Johannes Kleese wrote:

To sum it up, we have a number of card payment options in Germany:

Type - Costs for merchant -
Girocard - 0.3%, at least 8 cent - payment guaranteed
Geldkarte - 0.3%, at least 1 cent - payment guaranteed
Direct debit - none - payment not guaranteed
Credit cards - 2% - 4% - ?

No surprise, credit cards are not accepted everywhere in Germany, but
the Girocard is.

I've never had difficulty paying with a Mastercard or Visa in Germany.

No doubt, credit card acceptance got better in recent years, but you'll
still often get the "oh, please cash or Giro"-look, at least as German.
And I haven't seen any retailer yet who accepts credit cards for small
amounts. Usually they have a sign posted, saying the limit is like 10 or
20 €.
On top of that, try paying a bus ticket or cigarettes (from a machine)
with a credit card, you'll be out of luck - Girocard with Geldkarte
function will most of the times do.

Are you trying to claim that cards from non-euro countries are rejected?

Well, how could I claim that if I write "we have a number of card
payment options[list including credit cards]" and "credit cards are not
accepted everywhere" (everywhere is not anywhere).
All I tried to explain was the reason why credit cards are not accepted
_as widespread_ in Germany as the "four-headed monster" Girocard. Credit
cards are simply way too expensive.


Apart from that, in the list above I forgot to mention the customers side:
The Girocard comes with every German transactional and sometimes even
savings acount for free. Since you're practically lost without an
account in Germany (wages, rent, utilities usually require an account),
almost every German has a Girocard. So, few people get an extra credit
card, unless it comes for free, too, or they need to travel abroad. It
just ain't worth the hassle.

2.2.2011 0:59, Martin kirjoitti:

So noted. So what's your point? Are you claiming there are *no* vendors
in Europe that will not accept debt cards although they accept credit
cards?

In the Netherlands almost every retailer accepts a debit card. The same is not
true about credit cards.

In other words you(plural) are telling travellers to avoid your countries
if they want to use foreign(US for instance) credit cards?

No we are telling you what the situation is wrt credit and debit cards. If you
want to avoid a country that is up to you.

It may be so in the Netherlands and perhaps in Britain too (well, the
Brits do everything with their left hands anyway) but in about
everywhere else in Europe it isn't.


As far as international money transfers in the consumer market are
concerned, the credit cards came first and sometime after that the debit
(on-line) cards.

The reason is quite obvious. All you needed was a credit union. You
didn't need fancy computer terminals at shops (and they surely didn't
because there were no such terminals around)).
Vendors just took hard copies on the card [and the bill] and sent one to
an agent of the creditor. The money was wired to the vendor's account
soon after ("soon" here may constitute several days).

Very off-line.

Debit cards of global usage appeared decades later. No sooner than there
was an international real-time system in place to handle electronic
transfers between any two banking accounts.

This has been a piece of technical engineering of different magnitude.

Ten years ago relatively few Finnish establishment accepted debit cards
even if they did accept credit cards. On-line verification was also
bloody slow and in grocery stores people in queue behind the poor sod
who was buying by his cash card darted him by murderous staring.

Evolution is going on as it is going on everywhere and in all times.
Cash cards are not as much pain in arse as they used to: vendors are
supported by A LOT faster connections outside and paying is more secure
now to the card's owner. At this point of evolution a pin code is a bolt
to avoid fraudulent use most of the time.

Regardless of the very techniques used at any given time, there has
always been and there will always be two kinds of money in transfer
around the world:

lent and non-lent money.

Conceptually borrowed money is always more expensive to the households
than the money already in pockets. All kinds of payments cause friction
which is always buyer's loss and bank's gain.

However, sometimes you need to pay with "trusted" money which is equally
borrowed even if you didn't need to borrow money to cover the bill. The
seller just so demand, this is one dimension in credit cards. Quite
powerful every now and then.

Am Tue, 1 Feb 2011 22:12:50 +0000 (UTC) schrieb Erilar:

I've never had difficulty paying with a Mastercard or Visa in Germany. Are
you trying to claim that cards from non-euro countries are rejected?

Depends where you shop. There are certain chains, like "Media Market" (thy
sell stuff like Computers and TV-sets), that don't accept credit cards (no
matter if German or foreign). Also some supermarkets or grocery-stores
don't accept credit-cards. Though most of the bigger shops will take them.

Regards,

Frank

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 11:03:00 +0100, Giovanni Drogo wrote in post :
news:alpine.LSU.2.00.1102021047040.20807@cbfrvqba .ynzoengr.vans.vg :

Hey, I said, I've gained one coin. They will never make an international
credit card transaction for one canadian dollar. Instead they did. It
took about 6 months, but they did.

lol! it certainly cost someone more than the one dollar to make the
transaction :-)

--
Tim C.
I used to do rock climbing as a youth, but I was much bolder back then.

On Wed, 2 Feb 2011 11:03:00 +0100, Giovanni Drogo wrote in post :
news:alpine.LSU.2.00.1102021047040.20807@cbfrvqba .ynzoengr.vans.vg :

Personally I find fair to use the POS function all the times I pay for
something I'm picking up, and to reserve credit card usage when I'm
paying an advance to order something which will be delivered later, or
which exceeds the ceiling for the POS function.

That's more-or-less what I do too. I hardly ever use my CC in day-to-day
shopping.


--
Tim C.
You know what's a dangerous place to swim? The Hepatitis C