God I wish the US had a digital payment system that we could all basically agree on. Having Apple Pay vs Google Pay vs Zelle vs Paypal vs Venmo vs all the others is annoying as hell.
God I wish the US had a digital payment system that we could all basically agree on. Having Apple Pay vs Google Pay vs Zelle vs Paypal vs Venmo vs all the others is annoying as hell.
The first time I read "US store X supports Apple Pay or Google Pay now" I was really confused. I didn't know that was a thing. Here (NL) contactless payments works with every debit card, physical or stored Apple Google/Pay, in every store. There is no difference between payment providers, everyone offers contactless payments and it works with every bank.
(The only exception are credit cards, but they are not used a lot, mostly for online purchases outside The Netherlands or when renting a car abroad.)
> Here (NL) contactless payments works with every debit card, physical or stored Apple Google/Pay, in every store
That's how it works in the US as well. You might be conflating Apple Pay with Apple Wallet, which stores your credit cards for tap-to-pay. Most people in the US use Apple Wallet/Google Wallet to digitally store their credit/debit cards, and use those cards to pay at the store by tapping the POS terminal.
For example, I use Apple Wallet for nearly every transaction, but I never use Apple Pay/Apple Card as the payment method.
Can you point me to any documentation on how to use a credit card in Apple Wallet without using Apple Pay? To my knowledge that is not possible. You might be using Apple Pay without realizing.
https://www.wikihow.com/Add-Cards-to-Apple-Wallet
> Once added, your card can be used to pay for things anywhere Apple Pay is accepted
The method described in that guide is basically how you setup Apple Pay.
Apple Wallet is simply where the card is located on your phone. Once you use it to pay, you will use Apple Pay.
Last time I visited NL many shops (including Albert Heijn) only supported Maestro, so as a foreigner you effectively can't pay with Visa or Mastercard.
Not with Visa/Mastercard credit cards, but Visa/Mastercard debit cards work everywhere. In fact, my current main card is a Visa debit card (not Maestro or V-Pay, it has the same code format as a credit card and a CVC code, which my older Maestro/V-Pay cards didn't have).
This is one of the reasons why Garmin Pay is pretty useless here. Most banks only support it with credit cards and a lot of stores do not take credit card-based contactless payments (with some exceptions like e.g. Jumbo and Decathlon).
The reason is that debit cards have been the standard cards since the beginning. Nowadays more people have a credit card for online shopping outside the country, etc. But when I was young my dad had a credit card and that was fairly exceptional.
Back then there was still GWK. You could buy rolls of nickels to add some weight to your savings, american dollars and other foreign monies.
I'd buy myself a shitload of rupees (for a couple of tenners) if they were still around. Such a missed chance.
It is one of these instances where « let the market decide » is not necessarily the best option on the long run.
The market wants to take a cut per transaction, perpetually. At a high profit margin.
This is one where not the market but a country/group of countries need to rollout their own public payments so fees are minimal to zero.
You mean, communism?
(/s but you never know especially these days)
Ideal was a result of free market banking though.
> The system was conceived by the Dutch banks ABN Amro, ING Bank, Postbank N.V. and Rabobank, to develop a single system for online payments that could be used by all banks.
Currently owned by EPI:
> The European Payments Initiative (EPI) is a unified digital payment service launched in 2020 and backed by sixteen founding European banks and payment service providers.
Before iDEAL we had a similar mess with different banks and even a telco pushing their own payment system. It was basically the Dutch webshop foundation (thuiswinkel.org, basically the webshop lobby) that said: f*ck it banks, clean up your mess! And so it happened.
They even tried to extend it to other European countries in 2011: https://www.bnnvara.nl/kassa/artikelen/ideal-in-de-ban-van-m...
Ideal is great. The missing part of the free market is that the other part of it (consumers) expecting you to not be an asshole.
I mean you could have a single protocol and then various different providers still competing, like email, or how even for Visa or Mastercard there's a bunch of different banks that partner up.
We do, it’s called FedNow, it’s been live for some time. Instant payments for a few cents per transaction, up to $10M per transfer. Why don’t financial institutions switch to it? To keep getting the fees they’re accustom to.
Other countries are working to avoid the US financial infra rake and grift, but you’re captured by it if you’re stuck in the US unfortunately, because the US political will does not exist to compress profits for the financial services industry.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48415854
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48416032
FedNow Is Live - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 - July 2023 (1022 comments)
Almost like regulation is sometimes helpful if the market doesn't solve it.