[throwaway894345]

I studied abroad in France in 2012--at this time, all European card readers had been chip-based for quite a while and my US credit card didn't have one. I couldn't figure out how to use them and many store clerks had no idea what to do with my magnetic-strip credit card.

I went to England in 2019, at which point cards in the US had been updated to use magnetic stripes, and everyone was using tap-to-pay. It turns out my credit card had tap-to-pay support as well but it wasn't widely used in the US (or at least in my sphere). Now it finally seems common-enough here.

I'm planning another trip to Europe in the next year... Really eager to see what payments look like nowadays.

[Medowar]

..just dont go to Germany. We are not very advanced in that regard.

Of course huge amounts of stores offer contactless paying, but generally Cash is still dominant around here. Change is slow, and currently, Cash is still king, especially with small or street merchants.

[BiteCode_dev]

Since I'm dreading the coming of a cashless society, I'm really rooting for the German to push back against it as long as they can so that I can keep using notes and coins in euros.

[dash2]

I always found that so weird! The Exportweltmeister, producing some of the most advanced equipment... and in many places you can't pay with a card at all. Why do you think it is?

[dathinab]

Machinery needs to be lubricated to run well.

For many small businesses non-tax registered money is the lub which makes them run well.

Jokes aside the price of getting a card terminal where for many businesses completely unattractive for a long time and often still are if put in context to the number of people which will use it.

I know one local takeaway which stopped accepting card payment after their terminal broke recently, as it wasn't worth it to buy a new one. Instead they now allow sending money by PayPal, but non-advertised and mainly for a single specific big recurring customer and sometimes if someone doesn't has cash with them.

[yccs27]

We Germans seem to love our cold hard cash, so the incentive to get a card reader is lower. There are even automatic coin counting machines in some self-checkout desks...

[TillE]

To clarify, you can rely on nearly any supermarket or drug store to accept credit cards / contactless these days. Daily shopping is no problem.

Smaller stores or restaurants, forget it. Bring cash.

[cyxxon]

It has gotten much better in the pandemic. I pay at the bakery etc with cards. Not sure when I last paid enything with cash. Only caveat is that "cards" not always means Visa/MC/AmEx, but can mean Girocard only. If that is the case (and I'd just ask) then you as a non German will have to pay cash.

[jacquesm]

In restaurants it just so happens that not all of the people are on the books and neither is all of the income.

[ksec]

That is a feature, not a bug.

[jurmous]

We in The Netherlands are one of the most cashless societies in Europe. We mostly pay with our mobiles or contactless with banking cards. We even are "going Dutch" sharing our bills with what we call a Tikkie: One person pays the bill and then we send over instant messaging our payment request for money which can be payed directly with one click and authentication in banking app.

One thing that is annoying for foreigners with credit cards is that they are barely accepted here. We work mostly with Maestro and almost all Dutch e-commerce sites work with Ideal which directly link to the banking apps of the local banks.

My wallet does not contain any cash anymore and just an ID and OV card.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dutch-payment-landscape-one-m...

[larkost]

For Americans visiting the Netherlands one word of caution: many of the pay terminals (especially the parking ones) do not seem to like U.S. cards, and even some the vendors from Europe. When we were on vacation there a few years ago it was a roulette game to figure out if parking meters would take my card or that of my father in law (from Hungary).

The problem is that they have a local exchange there, and do not have cross agreements with all of the payment vendors (not at the Visa level, but bellow that). It was annoying, and caused us a lot of hassle. I am not sure how we could have avoided it.

[jurmous]

Most shops in the Netherlands work with maestro of mastercard and vpay of Visa. It is directly linked to our bank credit and has low transaction fees. Maestro and vpay is accepted all over the world. We work directly with IBAN numbers and not with credit card types like mostly in the world.

Normal Mastercard/visa credit don’t work here since shops have to pay way higher transaction fees while almost nobody uses them.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maestro_(debit_card) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_PayPlease

It will be phased out though in 2023 to Mastercard debit and visa debit so likely in the future Netherlands payment system will be more aligned with what other countries use.

[jacquesm]

> It will be phased out though in 2023 to Mastercard debit and visa debit

That sounds like an absolutely terrible idea. Why would we give these two rotten-to-the-core companies such power over our payment systems?

[L3viathan]

I don't really understand your point, neither do I understand the change:

Maestro and V-PAY already _are_ owned by those two companies, and are debit cards. What changes with Mastercard/Visa debit?

[jacquesm]

That it erodes the position of EU banks in favor of Visa and Mastercard. I have no problem with them facilitating the tech, but I do have a problem with them usurping the position of the banks. The EU is already too dependent on the United States in this manner, no need to make it worse.

[jurmous]

It sounds it will work the same as maestro but be usable in places where you need credit card numbers. https://www.mastercard.com/news/europe/en/perspectives/en/20...

[munk-a]

For Canadians - they've got no issue with almost all of our cards. It's just the American ones that run into issues, so your chip & pin and tap features will work splendidly abroad.

[samstave]

Now you know why so many dutch ride bikes!

:-)

[hk__2]

Can’t speak for other countries, but in France and Northern Italy this is the same: contactless cards everywhere. I live in France and --I have to check my banking app to check this because I don’t remember-- the last time I went to a cash machine was almost one year ago.

[mrep]

I'm in the US and the only time I can remember going to an ATM in the past 5 years is because farmers markets sometimes give you discounts > credit card rewards for cash and weed shops cannot use banks so you have to pay cash.

[dzhiurgis]

IMO farmers markets would disappear if they stopped using cash. It's basically synonym for tax avoidance sprinkled with some fraudulent claims how your honey cures everything.

[mrep]

I totally agree farmers markets are all about tax avoidance. They would charge me the flat dollar amount for cash but then add in the tax when I used a card. No way they are paying taxes on that cash transaction.

[theshrike79]

Ditto for Finland. Contactless cards or mobile phone payments work everywhere.

I haven't touched cash ever since covid hit, and very rarely before it.

[SSLy]

Same for Poland, and what I've heard, Sweden.

[pelorat]

Hopefully we can get rid of our OV cards soon. Annoys me a lot that I have to take it out of my wallet every time.

[rozenmd]

I've lived in France since September, and I think I've used cash... once? You can live entirely off using your phone/credit card to pay these days (if you don't frequent "cash-only" shops).

[eldaisfish]

worth mentioning that this seems a problem limited to the US. Even in Canada, the smallest of towns will have contactless payment. Many Canadians don't really use cash because interac/credit cards have all supported tap to pay for over a decade now.

[throwaway894345]

To be clear, the US has contactless payments all over and probably has had them since ~2015, it just took some time for people to "discover" them.

[seanmcdirmid]

A lot of POS's support contactless payments, but they were kind of flaky for the first two years, and...oddly slow.

Fred Meyers here in WA still doesn't support contactless payments (QFC, owned by the same company, does, however), annoying since I still have to shop there often.

[throwaway894345]

> A lot of POS's support contactless payments, but they were kind of flaky for the first two years

Yeah, that was my experience as well.

> Fred Meyers here in WA still doesn't support contactless payments (QFC, owned by the same company, does, however), annoying since I still have to shop there often.

I've largely had good experiences all over the midwest, but there are a few Stripe card readers that advertise "contactless" but don't actually work (probably misconfigured?). I've been traveling around AZ recently, and I've found a few POS terminals that don't support contactless at all, strangely. But overall they seem pretty widely available.

[techsupporter]

> Fred Meyers here in WA still doesn't support contactless payments (QFC, owned by the same company, does, however)

Some Freddy's do, at least intermittently. A few weeks ago, the one in Lake City had it enabled on their pads at the self checkout and I successfully used tap. But when I went back a week after that, tap was turned back off.

Kroger uses their smaller brands as testbeds for stuff and since QFC is somewhere in the bottom five for size-of-Kroger-operated-brands, I guess it makes sense.

[seanmcdirmid]

In the Seattle area, Fred Myer is the only place I can’t use NFC payments, for the last 3 or 4 years. Target has them, though sometimes their COVID plastic on the terminals interferes with it.

It’s annoying I have to carry a credit card, driver license (WA doesn’t support digital licenses yet), and an Orca card (also, annoyingly not phone compatible yet) in the wallet MagSafe attachment for my phone.

[adventured]

People will still be talking about how the US doesn't have contactless payments another five years from now. It's an inexpensive way to feel good.

[cromka]

> People will still be talking about how the US doesn't have contactless payments another five years from now. It's an inexpensive way to feel good.

From my personal experience, there were roughly about 80% of shops in NYC, up until the beginning of pandemic, that did not accept contactless or where it did not work. One particular supermarket next door had the proper POS for 3 years and it still wouldn't work even this May when I left.

The restaurants were even worse.

[brimble]

I've only just gotten used to the slide-it-in-the-slot kind. Whatever that's called. The thing that's replacing the magnetic stripes, more or less.

I always forget about contactless. I think all my cards can do it? Not knowing for sure is why I never try, and just stick the card in the slot, which always works.

I think I've paid with my phone one time ever. For some reason I can't bring myself to trust it to work 100% of the time so I can leave my cards at home, at which point I may as well just use a card since I have 'em anyway. I guess I could start carrying phone + cash as a backup and skip the cards, but that's even less convenient. I do activate the payment screen (iPhone) all the time by accident, though I couldn't tell you how.

(I'm not even that old...)

[throwaway894345]

> I've only just gotten used to the slide-it-in-the-slot kind.

I always called this "chip". My UK friends called it "chip-and-pin" in 2012. But yeah, no idea what the technical or widely-accepted colloquial terms are.

> Not knowing for sure is why I never try, and just stick the card in the slot

Yeah, for some reason the UX for contactless is terrible. Sometimes something will show four evenly-spaced green lights (and sometimes they're blue--in any case, why does that mean "contactless"?) but often those lights don't appear until you attempt a tap-to-pay and then they might be delayed by several seconds. And even then, occasionally the hardware malfunctions and can't actually handle tap-to-pay. These hardware failures seemed to be way more common in the early days, but now almost everything does support tap-to-pay--you just often can't tell until you try which is just the dumbest thing ever.

> I think I've paid with my phone one time ever. For some reason I can't bring myself to trust it to work 100% of the time so I can leave my cards at home

I definitely do it as a last resort, but I've done it a few times (e.g., if I forget my wallet). Mostly on iOS I'm often trying to pay quickly and I try to activate the contactless payment but I'll end up turning my phone off or I'll try to bring up my card before my phone is close enough. The uncertainty always makes me feel way more anxious than it should and it's just less stress to use a card (cards also don't run out of batteries).

[seanmcdirmid]

> Mostly on iOS I'm often trying to pay quickly and I try to activate the contactless payment but I'll end up turning my phone off or I'll try to bring up my card before my phone is close enough.

Having an Apple watch helps out a lot here. I can't do it on my phone either, but on my watch it is trivial.

[throwaway894345]

Good to know. I've had my eye on one for a while, but I opted for Air Pods last Christmas. :) Maybe this year...

[hackmiester]

The easier flow is to bring up the card while you’re next in line, then tap it to the reader when it’s time to pay.

[RulerOf]

You can often scan your phone/card much sooner than when you're presented with your total. I tap my watch at the grocery store as soon as I'm finished loading up the belt.

Whenever "your transaction" begins at the register could be when you're eligible to present your payment to the terminal.

[outworlder]

You should see the 'contactless' symbol (looks like a sideways wifi logo) if your card supports it.

I generally pay with the apple watch if the store supports it (most seem to, nowadays). It is more convenient than reaching for the wallet since the thing is in my wrist anyway.

[eldaisfish]

my point is that contactless and chip-cards have been around for so long outside the US that magnetic stripes are the oddity. Even the smallest of places with electronic payments will support either chip cards or contactless tap or often both. Near the US border in Canada, many shops have machines that read magnetic stripes. These machines cater almost exclusively to American travellers.

[ska]

And yet, I've had contactless rejected (even, we want a signature) as recently as 2018, at least. In major metro in California - let alone gas-station-in-rural-Georgia type places.

The tech was mostly there a while ago, but hardly universally supported. This is one tech area where the US has definitely been notably behind the curve.

[bayindirh]

In Turkey you can move around almost cashless now. Taxis started to accept cards in droves due to the pandemic and some municipalities are integrating VISA/Master infra to the mass transport, so you can just travel with your card.

Besides that, literally everywhere allows contactless payments. Even Visa/Master is changing their card designs to move vital information to the back of the card to prevent information theft via hidden cameras or a very keen eye.

[throwaway894345]

Same in the US. I virtually never use cash. The only real problem I run into is the occasional "open bar"--drinks are free but there's still an etiquette that you should leave a tip which generally means cash.

[cromka]

> drinks are free but there's still an etiquette that you should leave a tip which generally means cash.

In my experience on such rare few occasions I was able to tip with Venmo.

[throwaway894345]

Is there a "tip with venmo" poster displayed or do you have to ask the bartender their venmo account name? I've never seen this before, but agreed that it's rare.

[digisign]

A potentially malicious third-party selling your financial transaction history is not the best choice... by far.

[throwaway894345]

I wasn't arguing in favor of Venmo, but are VISA and MasterCard really better options in this regard?

[cromka]

I'd just say "sorry I run out of cash, can I Venmo/Zelle you?"

[emteycz]

The EU terminals have support for tips separated from the primary amount.

[throwaway894345]

If I understand you correctly, we have those here in the States as well, but the problem is you're not using your CC in the first place (in the "open bar" scenario) so you never actually use the terminals.

[can16358p]

If only our banks also supported Apple Pay...

[batuhanicoz]

That's probably a BDDK (regulatory body for banks) issue.

Good thing is you can actually use Apple Pay, I use my Watch to pay for stuff all the time.

You have to have a foreign bank account that supports it, I use Wise since it allows Turkish customers.

[can16358p]

Any issues about taxing etc if I get directly paid to Wise? I'd love to be able to use Apple Pay in Turkey.

[user_7832]

Can't speak for other countries, but at least here in the Netherlands, chip based cards are still the main type of card, though most of these cards support contactless payment as well. Almost all PoSes also support Apple/Google pay too which is actually pretty convenient. However, I think many (supermarket) PoSes also support magnetic - they appear to have 2 card slots on them.

[throwaway473825]

Can't speak for the Netherlands, but contactless payments seem to dominate in many European countries: https://www.nets.eu/Media-and-press/news/Pages/The-DACH-regi...

[tuyiown]

For france: contactless on phone should be ok with widely used card providers (VISA)

Beware, since covid, use of cash has dramatically fallen, last month a restaurant struggled to give me 2€ change, they didn't have 2€ in cash ! Paying in cash with the right amount should never be a problem though.

[jacquesm]

That may have been a signal that you should tip more.

[sbcd]

France is not America, thank you very much. I have never seen people leave tips here.

[Kognito]

Haven’t used cash since the pandemic started in the UK. Covid encouraged even market traders and street food vendors to move to contactless payments - which were just about the final holdouts.

[dzhiurgis]

NZ'er here - haven't used cash for years, except when you sell something online or buy drugs.

Spend is kinda hilarious - in supermarket checkout "can I pay $150 in cash and remaining using card?" just so you don't have to deal with coins.

[fennecfoxy]

Also a kiwi (although living in UK) I've used contactless since it was first available in NZ (ages ago) but when I returned late 2019 I found that contactless was no longer accepted at certain places, like liquor stores. Too many munters nicking cards to buy booze with I guess.

I can't wait to live in a 100% cashless society but I do think that the process should be refined (especially for phone payments).

Atm I tap and often have no idea if I'm really paying exactly what I should be. Credit card/debit numbers should only ever be temporary and for a given amount to a given merchant (like how my bank requires generating an OTP when adding a new payee). Confirmation that we are paying x merchant £y is definitely required.

Current system is really weak in that if someone has my credit/debit number they can arbitrarily charge me, in the UK if someone has my sort code + bank they can use that at a business to create a debit request and I get arbitrarily charged.

[rodgerd]

Same, but it's largely been that way since the early 90s.

It's weird getting pitches from US FinTechs that are solving problems that literally only exist because of how painfully backward that US financial infrastructure is.

[newroman]

I tend to not carry a card anymore, just my phone (Romania). I don't remember the last time I went to a shop that didn't accept card. Everyone who accepts cards accepts contactless.

[nly]

The reverse problem is also true. As a Brit traveling in the US I was dumbfounded when a payment terminal asked for my zip code...of course i didn't have one and my card was rejected.

[vishnugupta]

It’s tap to pay almost everywhere in the Netherlands. Apple Pay works like charm.