Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies • Hacker News Board

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#51

Post by waps » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 1:57 AM UTC

innguest wrote: post #49

notatoad wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

obviously they pass the cost on to the customer, but not directly. they can't charge one price for cash and a different price for card.

Which means they have to pass the cost on to both kinds of customer.

If you're a business customer in a bank, and you bring in cash on a regular basis, the bank will actually charge you a percentage for doing that.

From a discussion I had with a merchant, that rate is quite high, especially for small change. The value he gave for small change was 7%. That's a lot more expensive than the worst credit card charges, except for really small amounts.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#52

Post by Kiro » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 9:19 AM UTC

newaccountfool wrote: post #39

gst wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay for debit and credit cards in most European countries. One reason is probably that the fees paid by the merchants for card processing are much lower than in the US. So while a bank in the US is happy to give you a free credit card in the US, because it knows that it gets the money back via the fees paid from the merchants, a bank in Europe won't be able to break even with that approach.

I'm from the UK and have never had to pay anything for opening up an account and using a debit card.

So why are you talking about prepaid solutions? That's not how it worked when I lived in the UK. I had a normal debit card tied to my bank account, just as in the nordic countries. Nothing to do with credit rating either.

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#53

Post by roncohen » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

aembleton wrote: post #32

roncohen wrote: post #8

I believe the trend in the nordics is largely driven by the Dankort and similar ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dankort ) which is a debit card that is free to get and use for consumers. Merchants pay an annual fee depending on their transaction volume and they are not allowed to pass the cost on to the consumer. It doubles as a VISA which is neat when we go abroad. An interesting data point is that every single taxis…

Does Dankort use nfc/paypass so that you can just tap your card, or do you need to enter a pin each time?

It's a card with a "chip" and a pin. No NFC/paypass and no plans to change that as far as i know :(

Re: Nordic countries point the way to cashless societies

#54

Post by roncohen » Sun, Jan 11, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

Kenji wrote: post #14

roncohen wrote: post #8

I believe the trend in the nordics is largely driven by the Dankort and similar ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dankort ) which is a debit card that is free to get and use for consumers. Merchants pay an annual fee depending on their transaction volume and they are not allowed to pass the cost on to the consumer. It doubles as a VISA which is neat when we go abroad. An interesting data point is that every single taxis…

"they are not allowed to pass the cost on to the consumer" Haha, that's funny. The merchant's whole income is from the customer, there's no way not to pass it on to the customer, just to conceal better the fact that they're passing it on.

Most merchants are OK with the Dankort. Handling cash (in a near cashless society, mind you) is not free either. Bottom line is: if i can't pay with my Dankort, I'll go somewhere else.