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Cashless Adoption Growing In Europe
dkatana writes: Many European cities are moving toward a cashless economy. Some public services are not accepting cash anymore, such as parking meters, buses and transit, and city offices. (If you plan to visit Europe make sure your credit card has a chip, or you won't be able to use self-service machines.) Contactless cards, which allow people to pay easily for small transactions, are also gaining popularity. According to Finextra, a leading financial news service, "contactless is the new normal in Europe, with more than a billion tap-and-go purchases worth €12.6 billion on Visa cards in the last 12 months."
In some places, cashless options are being pushed by mistrust of the banking system. At the same time, places like Germany are dead set on keeping cash as the preferred method of payment.
In case you didn't know, the cards that most banks are now issuing in the US are chip and signature, not chip and pin like in Europe, and I understand that there are some spots that DO NOT accept chip and signature, like unattended tolls, unattended gas stations, and possibly some unattended transportation ticket purchases (trains, etc).
Pretty frustrating that credit card issuers decided to go this route in the US with some bullshit justification that people wouldn't know how to use the cards (WTF?).
While the chip and signature is more resistant to skimming and duplication, it is no more secure than the old magnetic stripe cards if your physical card is stolen. I think they did this to prevent an increase in support costs instead (people requesting to reset PIN numbers, etc).
Chase Quickpay?
Most places in Europe, only accept cash. In the U.K. you must spend more than GBP 5.00. EUR 7.16. 7.80 USD. before you are allowed to use a debit card, or credit card in shopping centre/shopping complex/shopping mall. All imported goods must pay import VAT Import duty that are delivered to households addresses in cash. You can ask to pay by credit card and they will give you a web address card with your pay number on the card if you insist but they do not like doing that they prefer cash in hand. Unlike the U.S. most pensioners in Europe refuse to use credit cards because they associate it with borrowing money off of creditors a form of begging. Pensioners collect their money in cash from a "Post Office"
Full Disclosure: yes, I live in Europe.
The largest cashless credit card payment system in France (Moneo) was just closed down very abruptly. Seems the whole ''cashless''/''contactless'' thing was just not profitable enough -- and not adopted enough -- to be continued.
Read all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In a place like Greece, for instance, it is well known that the vast majority of transactions are paid in cash, not using a credit card or anything.
I would take that kind of article with a large grain of salt on the side. Seems to me some bankers are declaring victory even before the war has started...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
If I had to guess, this isn't a case of "government tapping into my bank account", but rather a case of having previously given them payment information tied to this account, and as a "courtesy", they auto-renewed the registration when it was due. Heck, an "auto-renew" setting may have even been turned on and forgotten about...
There are, at the moment, three issuers of PIN-preferred cards in the United States: United Nations Federal Credit Union, First Tech Federal Credit Union, and Harvard University Employees Federal Credit Union. The first two anyone can join by first becoming a member of a particular nonprofit association. Given a choice, I would go for First Tech (or the Harvard Alumni card if you qualify) since they offer no foreign transaction fees and support all PIN variations (where the PIN can either be verified by the card itself or over the network by the bank); UNFCU only offers no foreign transaction fees on a card with an annual fee (you'd have to decide for yourself if the annual fee is worth the other additional benefits).
There is one other PIN-preferred option, the Diners Club MasterCards issued by BMO Harris Bank. However, they stopped taking applications several months ago and haven't resumed, so they're not an option at present if you don't already have it.
Two other fairly large issuers, USAA and Navy Federal Credit Union, were offering PIN-preferring cards but switched to Signature preferring.
But one question to consider is if you need a PIN-preferring card, or merely one that supports PIN? In the latter case, you'll still sign most of the time but if you encounter a situation where a PIN is required, it will work. Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Synchrony Bank (they issue a lot of affiliate branded cards like Walmart and Banana Republic) all fall into this category. A PIN preferring card would allow you to more easily blend in in Europe, but for now would actually be harder to use in the US; particularly in restaurants since even those that have switched to EMV card readers are still doing the thing where they take your card away from the table, so you'd end up having to go with them to wherever they have the terminal set up to enter your PIN, rather than being like Europe and Canada where the waiter has a portable credit card reader that they bring to your table.
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