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Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

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131–140 of 162 posts

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#131

Portugal: P2P payments - MBWay, has taken over by storam and is the defacto method for transfering smaller amounts of money between peers. For example, rent can be payed to landlords via MBWay, cleaning lady, etc. ATMs support it to. Almost every business allows payment with cards and the central bank is rumored to want to enforce digital payments for every business in the future. Personally, I hardly use cash now, h…

You still have lots of restaurants that don't accept cards, mainly outside cities. They say it's due to the cost of renting the card reader & the transaction costs but I think it's so it's easier to not declare the earnings.

It might be the case, but "lots" is an overstatement in my opinion. I was able to pay with card even in the most remote locations within the country. The restaurants that don't accept it are usually the exception and that argument of taxes over transactions is mostly bullshit for them to be able to escape proper taxation. A customer who pays with money and doesn't ask for receipt is all profit for dishonest owners.

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#132

Netherlands. Only carry cash because I received some as a gift at some point. Only place that I use my cash on is the local barbershop which only takes cash (probably avoids paying taxes that way). I pay everything through contactless payments through my phone or my debit card barring that. Some shops don't even take cash anymore because of how few of their customers paid in cash compared to how risky carrying that c…

Important to note that some shops in the Netherlands do not accept credit cards, and some even debit cards from Visa/Mastercard due to high processing fees (few %, varies from market to market and business to business). What made digital payments dominant in the Netherlands is the iDeal and (now retiring) Maestro cards, which have low fees. EU is looking into implementing something like iDeal at EU level, to populari…

The percentage cut is definitely annoying, but I believe the move from Maestro to Mastercard has also solved creditcard problems for a lot of people. There were a surprising number of Maestro-only terminals out there that were limited by technology rather than policy.

I still don't think I can pay for my groceries with my credit card, but that's clearly indicated at least. I expect the companies refusing the huge processing fees to block credit cards for years to come until the fees go down. That's unfortunate for tourists and immigrants, but mobile payment (bank specific/Apple Pay/Google Wallet) should work over the standard protocol and otherwise there are still ATMs you can use.

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I agree, I was going to write the same. But to be honest, I like cash. The feeling of the cash flowing out of your hand is much more palpable than when you use a card :) In Switzerland there is a national app for sending cash to friends that is really handy and popular (TWINT)

An app for sending cash? How does that work exactly? Out of curiosity.

Yes, I meant money. Sorry, english is not my first language... It uses the phone number and is linked to your bank account. So it is an automated and instantaneous way of sending money to another swiss bank account. You can also ask someone for money and they can agree to transfer the sum.

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Poland I feel that most people use cashless payments nowdays. It may be also true that I live in a city in western parts. I think that the eastern part might rely more on cash. Sometimes I struggle to pay with cash, if I have to. Cashiers cannot return change, or seem to be disgusted if they have to. ATMs are getting less attractive. Are in less places, are old. I feel like everything goes to phone/NFC. I have a p…

Some ATMs have absurd fees in Poland. I tried to pull ~~100~~ 50 zlotti from ~~rev~~ Revolut, and paid ~~40~~ 18 zlotti on top.

never heard of such fee, 40% sounds crazy, like impossible. from what I know living in Poland for my whole life, the fees aren't pushed by ATMs, but banks itself, so you should check fees in your bank, which sounds like foreign bank, so it might be that the exchange was that high or something.

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some ATMs have absurd fees in Poland. I tried to pull ~~100~~ 50 zlotti from ~~rev~~ Revolut, and paid ~~40~~ 18 zlotti on top.

never heard of such fee, 40% sounds crazy, like impossible. from what I know living in Poland for my whole life, the fees aren't pushed by ATMs, but banks itself, so you should check fees in your bank, which sounds like foreign bank, so it might be that the exchange was that high or something.

The bank was Revolut, and the ATM was Eurostat or something like that.

Exchange rate is actually pretty fine for Revolut, and I am on one of the premium plans, so I shouldn't have high fees in that regard.

I don't know.

My numbers were wrong. It was 50 zlotti and 18 zlotti fee.

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#137
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the bank leaking data cause trouble?

Your entire digital life could be stolen from you if someone knows your name, address, DOB, and last 4 digits on your card. Attacker can go through e.g. the Gmail password recovery process very convincingly impersonating you.

Gmail will let someone who has that information take over your email account?

The name+address+DOB of many people are public. So anybody who gets a glimpse at someones "card" (I guess you mean credit card?) would be able to take over their gmail? That would surprise me.

Do you have a link that confirms this?

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#138
post #64

It's half and half here in the Lithuania where I live, i'm just glad that I don't see crypto anywhere.

> i'm just glad that I don't see crypto anywhere. A honest question, why?

Because crypto is a scam with no use case at all.

https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/crypto-is-a-scam.html

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#139
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you also not care if that dataset gets leaked to the internet some day?

If your bank leaks data, you would be in so much trouble that thinking about privacy implications of that would be pretty low on your list. That's just your bank. If a global payment processor like Visa would leak data, there probably would be ripples going through most financial system (i.e. whole countries abandoning it, etc).

This makes zero sense. The biggest trouble is with the data/privacy, the funds would be safe. And no, the world wouldn't stop because of it, pretty much the opposite, small/medium scale leaks happen quite often and big ones aren't unheard of: https://m.startribune.com/target-settles-visa-card-issuer-cl...

Re: Ask HN: To what extent have digital payments replaced cash in your country?

#140
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the bank leaking data cause trouble?

Your entire digital life could be stolen from you if someone knows your name, address, DOB, and last 4 digits on your card. Attacker can go through e.g. the Gmail password recovery process very convincingly impersonating you.

And how is that information not part of the data leak which wouldn't exists if one stop using Visa?
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