Deutsche Telekom To Launch "MicroMoney"

XMLGuy writes: "Over on heise online there is news that the German Telekom will be launching a prepaid Internet payment card called "MicroMoney" this Fall. The idea is that you buy the card from places like a gas-station, scratch off the covering of the code number, then sniff the card (ok -- so no sniffing). You then use the code number to pay for whatever you happen to want to buy online. Up to now only a couple of merchants are listed -- so it will be interesting to see how this takes off. Oh, and as an add-on you can also use the card in public telephones. The cards will be available in units of 20, 50 or 100 German Marks." The Fish is your friend. These are supposed to soon be available at over 80,000 retail outlets across Germany, with 16-digit PINs. Think "phone card."

Comments

Re:Electronic money is evil

[Stormie]

Electric money is quite simply, the work of Satan :) For anyone even vaguely concerned about privacy and Government intrusion (which should be you if you're reading /.), then opposing its introduction is somethng you should be doing.

If you were English (obviously you're not), you'd be aware of prepaid cards like this for mobile phones, and would know that they are WAY better for privacy than whatever you're probably using now.

I can walk into a shop here in London, buy a mobile phone for cash, then buy £5 cards from the newsagent (also for cash), and use them to make calls. 100% anonymous. Physically, it works exactly the same as is described here - the card has a long number on it, you scratch the silver crap off to reveal it, then dial a number on your mobile and type it in. Then you have more credit to make calls with.

They try to encourage you to register your phone, by offering some free credit if you give them your name and address, but you sure don't have to if you don't want to. It's a prank caller's dream! Now imagine that you can get a £5 card for cash and use that to buy pr0n online.

So how is this "a sneaky way for the Government to get your life on file" ? Or were you just trolling?

Where is the generator?

[simpleguy]

Can someone please mirror the DT-MiCrOMoNeY-Generator-1.0.rar please?

Sorry, I had to pull this out of my bag of 'funny comments' :)

Very positive, but not for the regulars

[Rob Kaper]

This will be a positive boost for e-commerce activity. Many users do not shop on the Internet because they are afraid of giving out their creditcard information. Or here in Europe, because they do not have one because creditcards are not as widespread as in Northern America.

Of course, if you order a lot on-line then this won't be convenient at all. Think 'cell phone', the only people who do not have one do not make calls on the road often. So the only users who will use this will be the casual ones - still a huge market!

I'll stick with my creditcard though. Unsafe? I doubt it, I've been using it on-line for six years now and I have not encountered any false transaction yet. There's a bigger chance that some vague waiter at the restaurant copies your details when your card is out of sight than a cracker decrypting your SSL connection or breaking into your favourite e-shop.

[OT] Re:How much is a single /. article then?

[Rob Kaper]

So in the future I will have to pay a cent per article and two if I want to comment. Moderation in 5 cents a point?

No, here's the deal. It does cost one cent to comment (after all you are using Slashdot to punish your thoughts). However, if you are moderated up from your original score, your post is free. After all, your post definitely contributes to Slashdot.

Furthermore, users who have high karma no longer get bother with banner ads anymore, since all the trolls would generate enough income for /. to give the elite (and karma whores) a break.

Posting anonymously costs more because of the complications to scramble the connection between payment and post.

I think it would make the forum a lot more valuable. On the other hand, more reason to abuse the mod system.

Re:[OT] Re:How much is a single /. article then?

["Zow"]

after all you are using Slashdot to punish your thoughts

Well, I never thought of putting my thoughts on /. as punishment for them, but now that you mention it. . .

Sorry, couldn't resist.

-"Zow"

Please read the article

[jim68000]

I hand over cash at a till, and get a key in return that allows me to buy online without having to use a credit card.

The D-T system actually ensures privacy. The best the government (if you're horribly paranoid - as you appear to be) can work out is that this card was sold at that service station and that good bought with it were delivered to this address. Or with soft goods this IP address.

And that's not to say that the card in question hasn't changed hands a number of times in between.

Should boost porn usage if nothing else. ;-)

Sing along...

[lar3ry]

Here come's Telekom's Micromoney...
Buy that dress! Buy that beer! You've got money!
Hey, look a porn site! Key your code now!
Come on you got to scratch and sniff
And peel it right (I said, peel it right)
I say, yeah... yeah... yeah... yeah..

(Chorus)
'Cause I like to spend (Micromoney)
So much (Micromoney)
Too much (Micromoney)
Not good (Micromoney)
Not fine (Micromoney)
Where mine? (Micromoney)
It was mine, but I spent all night
They said, "Yeah..." (Yeah!) "Yeah..." (Yeah!) "Yeah..." (Yeah!)

They said I could spend it, Micromoney
Now I can't end it, no more Micromoney
I can't stop surfin' though I have no cash now
Can't stop now, no Micromoney
Need more (Yeah), I said, "More!" (Yeah!) Yeah! (Yeah)

(Repeat chorus)

I love my micro-micro-money...
I love my micro-micro-money... (Sure I do)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Yes, it's true)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Turnin' blue!)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Snifin' glue..)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Rent is due!)
I love my micro-micro-money... (Banks will sue!)
I love my micro-micro-money...
Yeah... Yeah... Yeah... Yeah... Yeah... Yeah...

Come on! Pay up!
Come on! I'm stuck!
Come on! What luck!
Found a card! I say, "yeah..." (Yeah!) "Yeah!" (Yeah!) "Yeah!" (Yeah!)

'Cause now I can spend (Micromoney)
Some more! (Micromoney)
You whore! (Micromoney)
I'm poor! (Micromoney)
My money's outa sight
It don't feel so fight
They say, "Yeah!" (Yeah!) "Yeah!" (Yeah!)

No more... (Micromoney)
I'm poor... (Micromoney)
I'm sore.... (Micromoney)
.
.
.

--

the best micropayment idea out there

[jonbrewer]

Deutsche Telekom really came across a great idea when they decided to link "phone cards" with MicroPayment CC Numbers.

For those of you who think these are like American prepaid long-distance cards, or prepaid cellular cards, these are very different. Phone cards that can be used in public phones in Germany are thin plastic cards with a magnetic strip on one side. The closest I've seen in the states are NYC Bus/Subway cards. You buy them at a News Stand, and you generally *always* keep one with you. Even if you have a cellphone. The German ones are especially nice, because they tend to decorate them as many countries decorate their postage stamps. (I know people who have collections of used ones)

The great idea about it all is they have

1. a product that's already accepted by the public
2. built-in anonymity
3. a huge distribution network.

I see this method becoming a standard in Europe rather quickly. Now if only DT would exert more influence over VoiceStream in the US...

Re:the best micropayment idea out there

[YKnot]

Phone cards are something very different. First, they are not cards with a magnetic strip, but with an embedded chip. Also, phone cards store the remaining value on the card. They are not connected to some sort of account anywhere (not even an anonymous account). They are not suitable for online payment because the recipient has to be certain that he's interacting with a real phone card. The security is based on checking for compliance with a very tight timing specification and strict size limitations, so that you can't emulate a card inside a public phone. You can't check this online, so it's back to account based schemes for now. BTW, Deutsche Telekom's "MicroMoney" is not really "money": You can't give some of it to a friend for example (unless he is a merchant, of course). While this may be a good transitional product for online payment only, true electronic cash is still far away.

Dot-com stock option!

[peter303]

Micro-money has been around for a while- otherwise called a dot-com option.
Also called a dot-com paycheck.

Re:Won't Work Well

[platypus]

The advantage over credit cards is not that evident, except (possibly) that people can't steal over 100 German marks (at present, about $42 or 48) by stealing your number.

One word:
anonymity

Omnitel - in Italy - has already launch it..

[ianna]

Omnitel - the Italian mobile company part of Vodafone group - has already launch such a service: it is called Omnipay.

The service is divided in prepayed and on-phone:
prepaid is working as described for Deutsche Telecom, while on phone is the possibility for customers to confirm transactions done with their credit card on the Internet with an SMS (which contains an order specific code) originated by their personal mobile telephone.

Paysafecard & Co.

[FonkiE]

Here in Austria (and Germany) we have the Paysafecard. [http://www.paysafecard.com].

It seems to be similar somehow. Each card is an anonymous account. After you spent all your money the account is gone.

Another already working non-card system is bezahlen.at. [http://bezahlen.at] Here you get a pass-through bank account which is connected to your real bank account. If you buy something you give one authorization to bezahlen.at. They have full access to you bank account, but you have to confirm each payment.

The name MicroMoney

[umeshunni]

Can the name MicroMoney be used legally by the Deutshe Telekom ?
It's already used by some company making a financial package for Palm - Something like quicken

Already been done right here in the USA...

[Myself]

http://www.7eleven.com/internetcard/

I've been using one of these to pay for my Earthlink account for several months now. It doesn't care what billing info you enter, the card will validate with anything.

Re:Key generator prevention?

[mrogers]

Another poster mentioned that the cards use 16-digit numbers, so there are 10 thousand billion billion possible codes. If a billion cards are produced, you would have to search through an average of 10 thousand billion codes before you found a valid one (by which time the retailer might have become a little suspicious).

Key generators don't work by trying random numbers, they work because someone reverse-engineered the software and figured out how it validates its codes. If the codes are random, and are validated by checking them against some central list of valid codes, it will not be possible to build a key generator.
--

Short-sighted and wrong

[horza]

I'll stick with my creditcard though. Unsafe? I doubt it, I've been using it on-line for six years now and I have not encountered any false transaction yet. There's a bigger chance that some vague waiter at the restaurant copies your details when your card is out of sight than a cracker decrypting your SSL connection or breaking into your favourite e-shop.

Please, there have been innumerable cases of credit card databases being stolen and that's just the cases we've found out about (so no more over-abused waiter myth). The real reason credit cards are safe is that the credit card companies will reimburse you if the card has been used fraudulently. On the other hand this gives you zero privacy. The death of cash will be a great loss and so this new scheme sounds great and worth supporting.

Phillip.

Re:Short-sighted and wrong

[horza]

I think you'll find that's wrong. VISA recently released a statistic that ecommerce accounted for 4% of transactions but 50% of fraud. Some mentions are here and here etc. Take for example CD Universe having 350,000 credit card details stolen as told here... how many can a waiter copy down?

You are reimbursed both online and offline to the tune of $50 (£50 in UK) for now, but credit card companies aren't charities. The costs *will* be passed on.

In the offline world fraud is less common because in transactions with non-reputable parties you usually use cash (if you are sensible). This new scheme is there to provide you with the equivalent service. I'm all in favour of the digital equivalent of cash, and will be watching this new scheme with interest!

Phillip.

New Money == New Economics

[4of12]

If this product proves popular, then this new form of currency could begin to impact the economy and some yet-to-be-quantified measure of the money supply.

Like banks of the 19th century that issued their own currency, I suspect that private organizations issuing electronic cash might eventually be regulated out of existence if the governments decided to preserve greater control over the money supply. Or, more probably, they would be subject to requirements such as having sufficient reserves to cover draws on electronic cash that they have issued.

So, then, would measures of the money supply that included micromoney or ecash constitute M6?

Re:New Money == New Economics

[4of12]

Where do you see a new form of currency here? Do you consider tickets of all kinds, calling cards, or special rate telephone numbers as new froms of currency as well?

If I am able to exchange these cards for a large number of goods and services with a large number of people, then it would qualify as a currency, IMHO.

Calling cards are restricted in what they can ultimately be used to obtain. Probably a bum on the street would not be able to obtain the same value as ordinary currency if he wished to exchange a telephone calling card for an alcoholic beverage, for example. So, no, I wouldn't regard such nominal use restricted telephone calling cards as a currency.

Whether micromoney achieves the kind of impact on the economy that I am hypothesizing depends on two factors:

• Universal Recognition of Value: Who accepts such micromoney without substantially discounting its value?
• Volume of Use: How much value resides in such cards relative to conventional government issued currency, gold reserves, etc.

Yippee.

[supersnail]

Now I can subscribe to "Nuns In Chains" without getting funny entries on my credit card bill.

How much is a single /. article then?

[SilverSun]

So in the future I will have to pay a cent per article and two if I want to comment. Moderation in 5 cents a point?

Napster is 1 cent a search and $1 the song. Google goes 20 searches a cent. The Fish costs you 0.2 cents the word and BritannicaOnline will charge 10 cents per search.

Anyone still remembers knows good old BTX (or teletex)? You had to pay certain small amounts per page, which havebeen charged to your phonebill.. HORRIBLE!

I hope this won't work out as most things by Deutsche Telekom do.

Cheers, Peter

Re:Won't Work Well

[StevenMaurer]

This technology will fail.

While it is somewhat convenient, it isn't as convenient as credit cards. While it is somewhat anonymous, it isn't as anonymous as cash.

Besides anonymity is pretty much guaranteed under european law. Private mechanisms to ensure that aren't necessary in that kind of environment.

Internet Cash

[nickovs]

This seems to be using much the same model as Internet Cash, a New York based start-up who issue pre-paid cash cards with a scratch-off security code. Internet Cash have a good selection of merchants with which you can spend, which is vital since often merchant acceptance is the biggest barrier to getting these things to go. They also have a security model which is, in my considered opinion, soundly founded in cryptography, so you won't be seeing any free-ware PIN number generators.

Disclaimer: My company sell equipment to Internet Cash, so I have a slight vested interest, but I still think that their technology is sound in a purely technical sense.

Re:Electronic money is not always evil

[huibuh]

I dont think so. Deutsche Telekom state in their webpage that you can pay anonymous. If you can buy this card at every kiosk, wouldnt it be a little complicated to demand the ID card from everyone? With 20 people queueing behind?

And I have to correct myself: there is no chip on this card (I assumed that because German cardphones use chips), its just working with a toll-free access number like most prepaid calling cards.

Electronic money is not always evil

[huibuh]

Sorry, you are wrong here. Were talking about prepaid cards you can buy anonymously all across Germany! They are as anonymous as phone cards (btw, they also have a chip for cardphones).

So these prepaid cards are actually a way to stay anonymous, as opposed to credit cards, which can be tracked.

Re:Electronic money is not always evil

[YKnot]

Why would you register or encourage anyone to register a 10$ bill?

Re:Electronic money is not always evil

[YKnot]

These cards can't be refilled. You use them, you throw them away. They are like prefilled withdraw-only anonymous accounts. Is marketing going to pay over and over again for the necessary reregistrations after the relatively small-valued cards are used up? On second thought...

Re:Electronic money is not always evil

[CrackElf]

But will they not, (like they do with some(all?) scratch n' sniff mobile phone cards) try to get you to register,(to encourage customer loyalty) and provide incentives for registering?
-CrackElf

Re:Electronic money is not always evil

[CrackElf]

If you could refill it at 11$ for 10$ cash
Or, perhaps by registering (and/or refilling) you could get a discount on your telephone bill. Marketing thinks of many devious things to lure ppl into releasing information.

After all, with mobile phones they encourage registering, and give additional time as an incentive.

(of course there would have to be hidden fees that are ultimately passed on to the consumer, like credit cards do)
-CrackElf

NetSpend

[Wesley Felter]

In Austin, TX a company called NetSpend is selling prepaid MasterCards. You put some cash in their machine and a card comes out. I think they're adding a fee of $1/transaction. I had one (they were giving them away for free for a while) and I wasn't able to use it at a store, but I did get some cash out of it at an ATM.

Re: This won't last long...

[Theodore Logan]

Of course it will be checked whether there is sufficient money on the card before it is used. Do you really think a company the size of Deutsche Telekom would overlook such an obvious detail? Also note that this scheme does not necessarily inherit the problems associated with micropayments in general (those outline in this rant, for example), as you have a certain amount of control of the amount you're spending, thus limiting the stress-factor.

Almost everyone seem to be on their own personal crusade against micropayments, yet noone is satisfied with the way you pay for low-cost internet-services today (banners, spam etc). I say we should give these guys a break. What's so awful about trying to come up with a different way of doing things? It's not like anyone will force those cards on you anyway.

Re:Exists all over europe

[andr0meda]

Well Proton is widely spread in Belgium, a small country with very high population density/shop density, and it`s surprising but allomost any shop offering a bank-card terminal has a proton slot on it. As a matter of fact I daily buy lunch with my proton, and 7 years after introduction it`s hard to find a shop not advertising Proton next to Visa, Mastercard and Banksys.

If I`m not mistaken Proton was a tied effort by Banksys and all major banks and shoppingmalls, giving it enough weight so the smaller shops could jump on the system too. It was first introduced in leuven, a typical university city where 80% of the population is a student. From there on it gradually came allmost unnoticed and now everyone I know here locally uses it. I think it`s a big success.

Those Europeans love prepaid

[montgomery]

Prepaid is much easier than processing small transactions in real-time. Bouncing a transaction off a database is the way to go... but all of you know that. Check out http://www.interactivcash.com if you want to see more about a similar technology.

Re:This won't last long...

[YKnot]

At the gas station:
- What do you need all these for? You bought a dozen just yesterday...
- Uhmmm... I read a lot of news online?

splashplastic.com

[wren337]

sounds similar to a UK company, splashplastic. they're leveraging the established "debit phone card" structure here. you get a card, go to (almost) any news agent and put cash on it, then spend the money online. nice anonymous way to turn hard currency into digital cash anonymously.
problem is getting enough merchants to make it compelling, the cool thing about online shopping is price comparisons and niche markets. proprietary payment schemes don't work well there.

Re:cramming

[Sebastopol]

No kidding. How many phone companies are getting nailed due to cramming? And that's just for a few dozen random charges. Imagine a monthly internet use statement with literally hundreds, if not thousands, of transactions. Seems like fraud's dream come true.
---

Exists all over europe

[jawtheshark]

This system, also known as an "electronic wallet" is known all over Europe. Well, okay, sorry....I know it for two other countries, but I guess it exists in many other ones. The Belgian system is called proton (warning: shitty flash site) and the system in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is MiniCash .

One of the big disadvantages is that those systems are not compatible from one country to another. This is especially frustrating for people like me (Belgian living in Luxembourg) who don't like to carry around cash. I use my MiniCash just to pay parking place, and that's it.

I don't think either of those two systems support online shopping. (At least it is not advertised) Homogenizing those systems all over Europe could be a solution and a primary step towards using these systems online, but unfortunately I don't know enough of the internals to think of a solution.

Why this is going to work (a history on failures)

[friday2k]

Well, this is yet another stab at Micropayments in Germany. This marketplace has seen quite a lot of those. Card based and software based. First there was the Geldkarte, a stored value card based system for the real world which never found real acceptance despite the fact that there are millions of users out there. Why? The added value was not there (besides paying ticketless in Parking garages or in public transportation). The private banks committees are nevertheless still trying to push it into the Internet market. Doesnt help, the require a class 3 card reader (_with_ a crypto pinpad and a display), that costs money (hardware, support, rollout logistics etc.) and the user doesnt like it. Then there were eCash and CyberCash. eCash was developed by DigiCash and introduced by Deutsche Bank (worlds largest bank) in 1996, CyberCash was the "enemies" response by Dresdner Bank, Hypovereinsbank and others.
eCash is a Cypherpunks wet dream. It is anonymous, you can send it to others, there are clients out there for all the real OSs (Linux, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Sun, etc.) and it had large support in the hacker community. It is going to be shut down in a month. Why? Deutsche Bank says in their letter it didnt meet their market expectations. It was another value stored system, it required a complicated subscription mechanism (say loud and slow Anonymity and Bundesbank (federal bank)).
Now Cybercash, developed by the now defunct Cybercash corporation (Verisign and FirstData just bought the assets). It should have been the consumers dream. Micropayment, Debit-Payment and CreditCard payment (not SET but C5) combined in one wallet. And the support of all the big banks in Germany but Deutsche Bank. So why did they fail? The software sucked (not all the beautiful OSs available that eCash had), was complicated and not marketed correct by the Banks. The consumer was not ready for a system like that. It is so convenient to enter your credit card number and shop online, isnt it? The consumer is protected when he shops online with his credit card. Protected by policies. The merchant has the risk. But, and here is the point of failure for all the systems described above, the Banks did _not_ give the merchant enough incentives to market the new systems (e.g. by giving rebates when you pay with eCash). And for the average consumer anonymity is nothing. At least nothing yet.
So what does Deutsche Telekom do different? From what I read these cards will be bundled with phone card functionality. The consumer can phone on public phones and can spend money on the Internet. The phone card market (stored value, wasted money) is already prepared. Everybody has one over there. Now bundle it, get enough shops and there you go. The only problem (in my opinion) will be the "Kreditwesengesetz" of the federal bank (see here). This says that everybody who creates so called netmoney has to be a bank (Telekom is no bank) and has to comply with the rules. Now this is going to be a lot of fun ...

crazy!

[lfourrier]

They launch in fall card in Mark, and as soon as January, Mark is no longer valid. They should lanch them in Euro from the beginning.
(note : euro is already legal currency in euro countries)

Electronic money is evil

[Dan Hayes]

Electric money is quite simply, the work of Satan :) For anyone even vaguely concerned about privacy and Government intrusion (which should be you if you're reading /.), then opposing its introduction is somethng you should be doing. This is one of those times when we don't need any more technology, because what we have easily suffices.

Sure, you can argue, we already use electronic money on the internet. Well yes we do, but we don't need new forms appearing, because every time they do it becomes more likely that a country's government will decide that the time is right for a general electronic currency, and introduce it.

And then every purchase you make is logged and tracked. And at will, the Government can block your money. Don't think they won't either. If you're even suspected of any wrong-doing then you'll swiftly find yourself unable to buy anything unless you check into the police station every day. And in the modern liberal trend of protecting people from their own "mistakes", the list of verboten behaviours is growing by the day.

Quite simply, electronic money is just a sneaky way for the Government to get your life on file. Don't be fooled by the technology.

Re:Electronic money is evil

[CrackElf]

That must mean that I am one of satans bitches ... I mean programmers ... (proging some software for a german telecom).

Seriously though, this is done through a bank and the phone company. It is just as intrusive as, say, a credit card. And it will be just as difficult for the Government to track and block your credit card.

(BTW: I do not think that they should be able to do it with the credit card ... but it is no worse than the credit card.)

Re:Mark up (sorry about the pun)?

[vagnerr]

Reading the article (translated via babelfish so forgive me if i'm wrong) it looks like the providers make their money, not by marking up the cost of the cards but by the fact that you buy the card first and spend later, so there is a latency between them getting the money from you and giving it to the merchant during which they can earn interest on it, allong with the potential for lost cards etc. Kind of the way paypal works :-)

Key generator prevention?

[TalShiar00]

Well there are key generators for little shareware programs up the more expensive software. How long will it take for there to be good ones made so you can buy physical stuff for free? They may have some good random number grnerators but someone can easily try a few thousand combinations in a short time to an online etailer.

Re:Not as crazy as you think....

[Mr. Obvious]

Indeed. Quite right. Particularly about the "human part" of changing currencies.

I'm an American who's lived in Germany for the last 10 years or so, and am constantly amazed how much resistence the Euro is meeting. Some is well-informed (considering how much the Euro has fallen since introduction), but I believe most of the resistence is simply superstition. People who are completely comfortable with the fact that you can translate pounds into kilograms, meters into yards, liters into pints (etc.), suddenly have all sorts of problems with Euros and Deutsche Mark.

I have a theory about this: Your resistence to change is related to the age you were when you learned about something. If you learned about it in childhood, you don't want it changed. I think this is what makes reforming the schools so hard all over the world (now that I'm old enough to go to Parent's Meetings at the local schools, I'm amazed how the locals cling to the way things were when they went to school).

This would also (to try to get back on-topic) partly explain the reluctance to creative payment plans like this one. The point of which is not to say that people are so dumb they resist these things, but rather that the problems involed in their introduction are perhaps 1% technical and 99% psychological. In other words, the whole trick here is going to be getting the psychology right. The technology will, then, fall in place.

Ron Obvious

Coinless society?

[kelliher]

Aha, but to scratch the card in the first place you need a coin.

Re:...money is evil

[anonymous cupboard]

Did you realise that these things have unique serial numbers and that these numbers can be traced?

Whoops, we were talking about dollar bills weren't we?

Won't Work Well

[absurd_spork]

The Deutsche Telekom has done some piloting experiments that did not turn out entirely bad, but they still haven't been able to entirely solve the key generator problem. They have a system in Germany called the GeldKarte (link in German, of course, since it's a German system) which is basically a phonecard-esque payment card linked to a special type of account at your bank; you can load your card with arbitrary amounts of money and use it for cash. This is basically the same thing, except that it works without putting your card in some slot but by specifying your 16-digit number. The advantage over credit cards is not that evident, except (possibly) that people can't steal over 100 German marks (at present, about $42 or 48) by stealing your number. On the other hand, the high granularity always forces you to keep a large number of cards if you want to order anything online that costs more than these 100 marks. BTW the card is Euro-aware, of course, because the value stays the same, it's just a different currency. So you buy a 100 marks card and when you use it after January 1, 2002, it's an 48 card. Not a problem. After the euro introduction, they'll probably shift to 50 and start selling them throughout Europe.

This won't last long...

[buglord]

The Germans have been scratching and paying for their prepaid cellphones for a while now, but I doubt that this will work.
If you pay for your cellphone, you can throw the card away after using the number. The card number is invalid right after you use it, and all the money if tranferred.
But with this system, you get to keep the card until the money "on" it is used up. How are all the vendors supposed to keep track of the cards? If it isn't done in realtime then I could overdraw a card. And that won't be a problem because I bought the card anonymously.
Also remember that all micropayment systems have failed. The Germany Bank are stopping their micropayment system because nobody uses it.
I just suppose some manager's generating work for his bored department.