31–40 of 78 posts
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Despite the name, it actually is. Not so much as Visa and MasterCard but it's still quite widespread. On the other hand, when I see an American tourist trying to pay with a Diners Club, I feel sorry for them.
How prevelant is Discover? Diners Club cards can use that network as well.
How many average joe's carry an American Express? They need Visa/Mastercard and some well-known retailers to make this work from the get-go.
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An Amex card is no harder to get than a MC/Visa. Costco has done quite well in the relevant middle-class-american-suburb market with an Amex-only policy. This isn't the barrier. The retail penetration, however, is the barrier. If you can't use these things mostly everywhere, this service is going to be no more successful than Google Wallet.
>> "An Amex card is no harder to get than a MC/Visa." Do Amex do a debit card? In Europe (certainly in the UK) debit cards are in much wider use than credit cards and Visa and Mastercard debit cards are given with almost every bank account.
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>> "An Amex card is no harder to get than a MC/Visa." Do Amex do a debit card? In Europe (certainly in the UK) debit cards are in much wider use than credit cards and Visa and Mastercard debit cards are given with almost every bank account.
They do a particularly weird instrument called a "charge card." It's not a debit card because it's not pulling straight from a checking account, but there's no long-term line of credit either. It's like a credit card that you're actually required to pay in full every month. So no different from responsible credit card use, but still not credit.
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>> "An Amex card is no harder to get than a MC/Visa." Do Amex do a debit card? In Europe (certainly in the UK) debit cards are in much wider use than credit cards and Visa and Mastercard debit cards are given with almost every bank account.
They do a particularly weird instrument called a "charge card." It's not a debit card because it's not pulling straight from a checking account, but there's no long-term line of credit either. It's like a credit card that you're actually required to pay in full every month. So no different from responsible credit card use, but still not credit.
It should be noted that they also offer regular credit cards, in addition to the charge card, and these do not require payment in full at the end of the bill cycle.
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Despite the name, it actually is. Not so much as Visa and MasterCard but it's still quite widespread. On the other hand, when I see an American tourist trying to pay with a Diners Club, I feel sorry for them.
How prevelant is Discover? Diners Club cards can use that network as well.
American Express is a bad choice for many parts of Europe because companies are use to very low processing fees, and AMEX (and Diners Club) are very expensive credit card to process.
Are they referring to mag stripe or EMV by saying "traditional" payment cards?
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American Express is not commonly supported outside the USA.
True, although in the Netherlands this seems to be changing in the last few years. A lot of restaurants and stores for clothes/shoes etc are now accepting them. Grocery stores over here almost never accept credit cards. If Apple sings some kind of exclusive deal for iPhone payments with the credit card companies I expect that half of Europe will start accepting credit cards because people willing to pay for a 600 eur…
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They just installed NFC-ready consoles at my local Whole Foods. It could easily be coincidence, of course.
It is a coincidence, and it is odd that Apple seems to get attribution for emerging technology trends. All of the payment vendors are or have already embraced NFC. Here in Canada, NFC is ubiquitous, and I'd be surprised if it wasn't in the US. MasterCard's PayPass, for instance, is NFC.
Many banks still issue magstripe-only cards here.
I think the banks here are aiming for a 2016 cut-over.