As a German
a.) I mostly pay cash because it's faster
b.) some shops that can afford it only have cash payments to save on CC costs
Not because of inflation or because something happend 100y ago.
a.) I mostly pay cash because it's faster
b.) some shops that can afford it only have cash payments to save on CC costs
Not because of inflation or because something happend 100y ago.
Cash workflow:
- Cashier tells you the total amount
- You look in your wallet/purse
- You spend time counting exact change if you do have it
- If not, you take out a rounded bill/note (say $20)
- Cashier takes the bill/note, punches in the register and then spends a few seconds giving you the change back.
Credit card workflow:
- Cashier tells you the total amount
- You look in your wallet/purse
- You swipe card/insert in chip reader
- Done
- Cashier tells you the total amount
- I get a 10 EUR note from my trouser pocket
- Cashier gives back money
- I put money in trouser pocket
- Done
- Home: I put all spare money in a large glass jar
Credit card workflow:
- Cashier tells you the total amount
- You look in your wallet/purse
- You swipe card/insert in chip reader
- You insert PIN number
- You shield your PIN entrie from the people next to you
- You tell people too close to back off
- Chip reader did not work because of humidity
- You insert PIN again
- You tolerate the angry stares from people behind you who think you're either stupid or broke
- You wait 5 sec for transaction to fish
- You put card back in wallet
- You put wallet back in trouser pocket
- Done
Some places like Starbucks seem to get it right. Swipe card and go.
Target however likes to hit you with all the options. Self checkout is even worse.
in the glorious lands across the ocean, chip cards of all kinds use a PIN instead of a signature, which makes way more sense anyway. Chip & sign is an American abomination.
In the USA, its rare that you'd have to sign for anything under $20.
Because of this, credit cards in Europe tend to not have the same great benefits you can find on cards in the US. AMEX is pretty good still, but there isn't exactly tons of competition in the credit card space here.
You can call your bank, get your card switched over to Freedom™ mode and enjoy faster payments.
Might not want to do this with a debit however.
(And I did complain to their customer service, but they won't change the setting).
When I was in Seattle at a restaurant trying to pay, the owner told me that they also couldn't accept tips if they used chip cards. I thought she was BSing me into paying cash but she tried to swipe the card instead so that I could.
It's amazing how, in the US, even the implementation of new technologies is broken and awful.
Also because if my card gets stolen, I'm assured that my pin wasn't lifted by camera or keypad shim. The signature will be not present or not mine on fraudulent transactions, so I can tell my card issuer to fix it and not worry about them telling me I had "poor PIN security" or that it was somehow my fault.
For financially responsible people, that means you can sometimes get a few freebees if you're willing to deal with the hassle.
I don't know what it's like in most other places, but debt is a weird part of culture here.
I do get lots of junk mail for credit cards, have done for decades, so I could get one tomorrow if I desired. But I don't see any real value in doing so; why get into debt if you can avoid it.
I never spend my own money directly unless I have to (e.g. the merchant doesn't accept AMEX or only takes cash etc.) because should I end up with fraudulent transactions or lose my card or whatever it may be, I have actual cash to back it up.
If you're fiscally responsible and make sure to always pay off the bill at the end of the month (with all that money you didn't spend) then credit cards are pretty much nothing but benefit. There may be a yearly fee associated (my card has one) with it but I've found it to be worth it for the benefits alone, but I also rack up so many points that I can use those to pay for the fee.
- Cashier types in the total to the EFTPOS terminal
- You get your wallet
- You remove your card
- You tap your carda gainst the contactless reader, which registers the payment in about 1 second not 5 as you describe
- Cashier asks 'would you like a receipt for that?'
- You say 'no receipt, cheers mate'
- You put your card away
- You put your wallet away
If you pay over $100, you enter a pin and it takes maybe a little longer because no one crowds around each other at the payment area so there's none of what you describe and it always works despite the humidity you apparently describe.
As we don't have a tip culture, we don't see donation/tips/etc. prompts as others describe. It's only ever whether you want a receipt, and that's a single button press and you can pre-emptively say no to that so it doesn't even slow you down. Cash definitely takes longer here.
- Cashier gives you the total - I pull out the bills I have and find the best denomination - I get a bunch of change back I have to stuff into my pocket along with my bills while getting my stuff out of the way for the next person
Credit card workflow: - Cashier tells you the total - You say "debit" or "credit" and the cashier pushes a button on the register - You pull out your credit card, touch it to the machine, and then put it away and start packing up your stuff to leave - The machine beeps and you leave
Far less fuss, far less opportunity for dropping change. Simple and efficient. I have my card out, tapped, and back within 5 seconds and my transaction is complete, and I never have to worry about if I have enough or too much.
- Cashier asks if I'm paying with a credit or debit card.
- Cashier enters the total amount into POS terminal. Meanwhile I pull my card from wallet.
- I tap the terminal with my CC.
- I put my card back into wallet. Meanwhile the cashier asks if I need the receipt.
- Optionally: take the receipt.
- Done.
- Cashier tells you the total amount
- Since I was watching the register display, I already have a rough idea how much this will be, and I have prepared the bills to hand over.
- Cashier gives change and receipt
- I walk away, and after I'm out of the way, I put the change into my wallet.
- Done
Similarly, credit card workflow (American):
- Cashier tells you the total amount
- You insert in chip reader a card you already had out
- You sign, sometimes
- You wait 5 sec for transaction to finish
- You put card back in wallet while receipt is printing
- You put wallet back in trouser pocket while receiving receipt
- Done
The time spent on these is very, very similar. Being prepared with your form of payment and dealing with putting away the results (change, card, receipt) after you leave the line results in a very similar time. Signing (or pin) and waiting on the transaction takes a comparable amount of time to the cashier counting your payment and making change. In each case, less than 15 seconds, and at that point, who cares?
I pay with my banks card (not a credit but a debit card) and then ask them for cash on top of the groceries. I am often the only one paying with a card if any kind though.
that way i have cash for all the things were paying with a card is frowned upon in germany:
- eating out - going on a fair - getting ice cream with the kids - going to the public pool with the kids - giving kids their allowance :)
and other things of that nature
PS: Since cash payments make it difficult for marketers to 'understand' their customers there are a number of cashback card systems like 'payback' in germany which try to get people to identify themselves.
- Cashier tells me total amount.
- I get my card from my wallet.
- I hold the card near the terminal.
- 2-3 seconds pass, terminal goes "Approved".
- Done.
It's easier than cash. Almost every store I went to had wireless card terminals, even coffee shops and supermarkets.
also its always a guessing game whether you have to enter a pin or sign. it seems a random distribution. same shop, same amount, sometimes pin sometimes signature.
PS: I am not saying its good or bad, just trying to give people a feel about some of us Germans
I like Paper Cash / Notes. I dont like Coins.
Another Reason I like Debit Card or NFC Recharge Cards like those in Japan is that they actually require me Charge the card first. This action will live in my subconscious how much I have spend. I know this is an unpopular motive in US where they just want you to spend and spend.
And Getting rid of Cash ( The so call Cashless Society ) is like having less freedom in a what is already less free world then before.
However, there's a pretty large market for credit/debit card transaction data. Even Google purchases it[1]. Both your credit card company and the payment processors/networks themselves are able to monetize this data quite effectively. And the more complete people's transaction histories get the more effective this data becomes for different uses and the more the companies can charge for it.
Depending on the demographic a particular card is able to capture, the transaction history may be valuable enough to run the rewards program at a loss or break even when looked at purely from the merchant fees recouped.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/23...
- You get asked if you want to donate to (charity/cause)
...
- Done.
Cards are definitely more convenient.
That's rarely the case. I can only think of dm (a drugstore) which rounds all prices in 5 cent increments. Otherwise you see a lot of prices ending in 8 or 9.
Also, there are several chains (Netto, Rewe, Kaufland, etc.) where you can round up your total to the next-higher multiple of 10 cents, and the difference goes to charity. I always use that if possible to avoid Buntmetall (i.e., 1/2 cent coins).
On the other hand, if you use credit cards, you would ideally be keeping receipts and then reconciling them to the statements you get from your credit card company to make sure there's no fraud and no errors in billing. Some people have the discipline to do that, but many don't.
With credit cards it's easier to overspend. Not only can you perhaps too easily borrow more than you have in the bank with a credit card, but temporarily giving someone a card that you get back right away or giving them a credit card number doesn't have the same psychological impact as permanently and irrevocably giving someone your hard-earned cash. So people are tempted to spend more when using credit cards.
Finally, there's the issue of being tracked. When you use credit, at the very least the credit card company knows where and when you shop and possibly what you buy. With cash you could have more privacy in this respect.
Also, I feel really bad for the cashiers that are unlucky enough to have all that change dumped on them and are forced to count it all. Some banks have change counting machines, but surprisingly, many don't and the change is still counted by hand while you wait.
Of course, just take it to the bank and they'll do it for you for free.
also i use it to get some change for the occasional buns
I wonder how come these types of machines aren't more popular in other countries.
[0] sounds like some super fancy concierge service, but it's pretty much standard, from 7-eleven to fancy stores
The new contactless payment system is faster, unless the store does something stupid ... like wanting to do a customer database lookup before doing the actual transaction which one chain here in Austria unfortunately does.
I can also second the opinion of many other commenters that the privacy implications of credit cards, especially the RFC ones which allow for invisible tracking, is a huge turn down of card payments in Germany.
And last but not least, as a developer, I gotta vent some air and complain that credit cards payments are huge pain in the butt, because of all those pesky special cases that arise from fraud prevention and risk reduction. Which isn't necessary for any sane payment method which can collect money directly from your bank account without the possibility of any charge-backs. This is one of the core reasons which persuaded me a European Fintech Startup Scene is necessary, so that Stripe with its CreditCard-centric API doesn't stand uncompeted.
That doesn't make sense as a premise. The US wasn't lacking in experienced cashiers 15-20 years ago when cash was still king, nor today. There was a decade or more of time where the US rapidly transitioned from cash-heavy in stores over to card-heavy, the cards were universally faster unless the store ran a behind-the-counter swipe machine that the cashier had to use. The premise would have to be that in an economy with a super high GDP that has an extremely large service sector, America has especially slow cashiers everywhere (for no apparent reason given the extraordinary economic output overall). It's more than a reach.
- Waiter brings check
- Leave cost + tip
- Leave
If you pay with card that's an extra trip from the waiter which can take a pretty long time.
You can make it explicit, by having a card visible when you ask for the bill.
They take your card away and bring back a card receipt for you to sign & leave a tip on.
There is no practical alternative, since the customer needs to input their PIN.
Dishonest waiters used to be considered a common way for card details to be stolen.
Example: https://www.paymentsense.co.uk/card-machines/portable/
People pay with rounded bills most of the time, cashiers are fast at returning change (amounts are usually a single cent below the full euro for each item, so change isn't a big problem).
The credit card workflow requires you to sign as well (or alternatively sometimes your pin if it's a debit card). Also, no swiping, only chip readers.
So in essence, taking out the bills is comparable to taking out your card, and the question is whether signing/entering pin is faster than the cashier giving you your change.
Of course occasionally you will pay in exact change, but that's balanced out by all the times you have to insert your card a second time, followed by trying another card.
You're right about the cashiers though, they're super quick.
The good thing about the card is that you hand it over, and while the reader is talking to the bank you have a few seconds to continue packing your bags. I've simply found it flows better with card every time, as long as you remember which checkout has the dicky card reader that needs 3 tries.
Standard on most bank cards in the UK. No pin or anything. Tap it on the machine and you go. Takes 2 seconds at most.
Still, I do hold cash sometimes, you do need it in some cases.
It's faster, and the app gives a list of the purchases you've made with a card, so I can track what I'm spending relatively easily. Unfortunately, there are still lots of stores that haven't upgraded to contactless yet, which means I can't rely on Android pay for the time being. I can see this being much worse in Europe where contactless payments aren't implemented in many more places than here in Canada.
A) there is a risk as everyone can create a stripe account and buy a charger. Personally I would never notice.
B) every transaction creates costs. Some visible (depit charging fee) some hidden (credit transaction fee)
C) At least in most of Europe it is far from widely supported, even thought it's growing for a while now. Except you stick to the most touristy places that is. In south east Asia I haven't seen it at all except in tourist focused places.
Personally, the convenience of: not having to wear a wallet at all (I just carry the card in my pocket) and not having to deal with coins, negotiate if I'm paying a big bill etc. is just amazing. Even if someone steals $10 from me once in a blue moon, it's well worth it.
The credit card never really saved me. It really just is there to make life a little easier.
When I tried using my debit card and they ended up taking the money and then refunding it over a week later.
[0]: In contrast to e.g. Rewe which is also mostly operated by independent merchants but has strict rules for those.
I've never had to sign in the last couple of years when using my credit card. Fewer smaller shops would take it than in the UK, but otherwise I never noticed any difference.
In most EU countries, the item would be priced at €10, you would pay with a €10 bill and move on.
- You look in your wallet/purse
- You swipe card/insert in chip reader
- You avoid making eye contact while the transaction is processed
- (optional) The card reader fails and requests reinsertion. Repeat previous two steps
- Done
Disclaimer: I've seen exactly this a few times
Cashiers with decent performance will take a solid bill like a twenty and give you back your change in a few seconds. If you want to give specific amounts of change, that adds time but so does when you split credit cards to put specific amounts on them. If anything, the cards can take longer since the transactions are separate. Wise users of cash also already have most of their money ready for payment by the time the order is totaled since it saves them time.
So, for most orders I see, the cash and credit take about the same time if customer is moving decent speed. The only difference is if the customer is moving slow for whatever reason (eg indecision or fumbling for stuff). That can happen with either but happens more for cash since credit users look for one item (the card).
Cash can be faster because you do know the total before hand since the price on the menu/price tag is what you pay. This is because there is no sales tax or tipping. Buying 3 items at HK$12 each? Your total is HK$36. If there's a queue I usually have my exact change ready before I'm to the front.
In the US, you can rarely tell how much you'll pay since sales tax varies by county or sometimes by city.
A side effect of this is weird totals like $23.76 that result in lots of hard to spend small change which also disincentivizes cash use.
In Germany you always have to insert your PIN or sign the bill if you want to pay by card (we use debit cards mostly, credit cards are very uncommon).
> - Cashier tells you the total amount
> - You look in your wallet/purse
> - You swipe card/insert in chip reader
> - Done
You forgot the part where you have to enter you PIN and wait for the transaction to go through, or sign the receipt.
So 70% of the time it saves time and 30% of the time it wastes time. Then I broke my phone and bought a replacement without NFC so I don't have the option anymore anyways.
It's a great system, however, I think the kinks need to be worked out a little.
(I had a Nexus 5x FYI)
That seems an easy way to get your merchant account cancelled very, very quickly.
Even if it did, the bank is likely to block the transaction, or call/text for verification.
I heard that those are very easy to crack. It might have been this article from 2011 where I read about this (German, sorry): http://www.zeit.de/2011/21/Kreditkarten-Sicherheit
Historically if in the US if someone gets a hold of your card, if I report it as soon as I know there is a problem you are legally out $50, and the credit card company and merchant has to eat the rest of the loss. In most cases the credit card companies figure since they have to take the rest of the loss they may as well get the customer service points by taking that $50 as well. As such it is only a minor inconvenience if someone gets a hold of your card, most of which is related to waiting for them to mail you a new one. Because of this people don't care about chip and pin being more secure: security was not their problem. This is also a factor in why the US is much more likely to use a credit card: there are no anecdotes about someone losing a lot of money because of their card.
By contrast in Europe you were liable for all amounts charged on your card before you report it, even if you had no way to know about the charge. Since the credit card companies didn't have to take a large risk they typically didn't agree to take it on. As such a credit card is much riskier, and so it is prudent to not use your cards if you have a different option. When chip and pin came out consumers were interested because it gave them some ability to limit their loss: their chip/pin card could be lost without the potential of great loss.
Note that the above is historical, and like all generalizations is false in some way. Laws change all the time which means the current reality is probably different - but the historical reality is still shaping our world. Europe is not a country, each country in Europe always had their own laws which differed in some way from the next.
That's true only if you or the credit card company notice the fraudulent transactions and act on them within the limited grace period, which I believe is something like 3 months.
Many people don't actually keep their receipts or reconcile them with their credit card statement. So unless they get an unexpectedly huge credit card bill, they might not even notice that they were victims of fraud and in that case the "0 liability" credit card policies are worthless, because they get defrauded anyway.
I have to verify any transaction over 20$ with my Swiss credit card for example. Even on contactless
- Total amt
- (After deciding which card is best) Get card out
- Swipe, but piece of shit card reader complains, so retry. Or insert chip, then the piece of shit card reader makes the same sound for "wait" and "remove", sometimes cauing confusion.
- Wait for piece of shit card reader to show up signature bar (or less commonly the cashier has to print out a receipt and have you sign it)
- Done.
I love credit card rewards though, but I'm not sure if it's a zero-sum game.
Which is annoying and time-consuming.
- Tap phone (that's already in your hand because you were aimlessly swiping while standing in line) to terminal with finger on fingerprint reader while cashier is ringing up items
- Tap confirm and sign once all items rung up
Now though we have NFC tap-to-pay in Canada and it's wicked fast in comparison to everything. No signature, no PIN entry, connections seem much faster.
1% earned when spending
1% earned when paying the bill
Cashback is not immediately applied to the balance so it's actually 2% and not something like 1.9999999. No annual fee but it's not really worth it to apply for this card per se, better to get another card that comes with a signup bonus (this one never does) and "product change" it to this card by calling in.
- You hold your card/device near the screen for about a second
- It authorises in a few secs
- Done
a) That's a good joke. From faster to slower: NFC > PIN > signature > cash.
b) You should look into the real cost of dealing with cash. EC is stupidly cheap since it's basically the cost of a SEPA direct payment (we're talking 1-2 cents per transaction). Debit card payments can also be pretty cheap in Europe. All those annoying restaurants and small shops that take only cash do it to dodge taxes, not for any other reason.
SEPA is the single euro payment area. Here it refers to the cost of a wire transfer.
Now that we are talking about card payments (NFC, chip and pin, etc.): jump into a random Frankfurt taxi in 2017, and IF they are willing to take your card (pretty big if), this will be their method of choice:
http ://fernandodecordoba.es/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/bac1.jpg
They put your card in there, put a paper on top, and proceed to press and copy the embossing of all you card numbers into a carbon copy paper. Talk about swipe card insecurity... That is by far the slowest way, you spend 5 minutes easily.
I agree with the laundering / tax evasion cause only partly: I once wanted to pay upwards of 900€ in IKEA with mastercard. The cashier asked me to go to an ATM that was inside the IKEA building, take out cash from the card, and pay with that. With its scale, I don't think IKEA prefers cash to launder money or evade taxes...
Eurocheque hasn't existed since 2003. The current system is Girocard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard), it's just that the colloquial name is still "EC".
SEPA is the Single European Payments Area, standardizing how to process fast and cheap payments, all transfers are in Euro, from 2018 on also having a standardized API between banks, wire transfers are free or below 1 cent each, etc.
Well, it is used (almost all major stores and large grocery chains support both Visa and MasterCard), but Girocard is far more widespread.
And members of both have reservations against MasterCard and VISA, due to what happened with Rossmann a few years ago (Rossmann sold cuban cigars, as punishment MasterCard, VISA and PayPal seized Rossmanns funds and suspended all payments), but as EC was also bought by MasterCard and merged with the Maestro brand, currently there's no option but to continue on.
Personally, as member of both the REWE eG and coop eG, I'd support a move away from CC to any national or EU based payment system as soon as possible.
Rewe has a fairly complicated legal structure, I'm not sure which you are a member of. There is no single "Rewe eG" which you can just buy into, especially not if you don't happen to own supermarkets.
EC was not bought by MasterCard, the brand was always owned by them (though there have been various mergers). The system behind those cards was not merged with Maestro (which is a different system) but merely rebranded as Girocard, an independent scheme by the German banks. It works without any reliance on MasterCard.
I'm personally not sure either. Originally my entire family was just a member of the coop eG, but when they started to merge with REWE eG in the past months the coop eG offered an option to invest additional money into the REWE eG (at better than usual terms). So we did.
https://www.shz.de/regionales/schleswig-holstein/tschuess-sk...
So now we have some stores that have just been rebranded REWE, some still branded Sky, operating with the same mix of REWE and Sky products, and some accepting CCs, some not.
> The system behind those cards was not merged with Maestro (which is a different system) but merely rebranded as Girocard
In marketing, EC stopped being the main brand, though, and MasterCard provides their EC cards under the "Maestro" brand within of Germany, although they are not operating over the Maestro network, or in any way compatible with it. Take any recent EC card, it'll work only via the EC system, say Girocard Electronic Cash on the back, and Maestro on the front, but doesn't actually have any relation to the Maestro system. That's what I was referring to with the rebranding.
For cash you have to count and recount that cash at the end of the shift, and then the bank counts are recounts it again. This is a significant amount of labor. By contrast with a card once the initial transaction is done everything is put into the computer electronically and no human has to look at it again.
Also cash is subject to theft. In some locations this risk is a significant part of the transaction costs - not just the cash, risk of death in the robbery. Electronic payments are subject to loss, but generally there is a trail to chase when it happens, and the possibility of death is much less.
Until 2016, the costs were 30€/mo+0.125% for EC, 160€/mo+4% for VISA and MasterCard, 160€/mo+7.5% for AMEX in Germany.
Most German merchants run on margins below 1-2%. Good luck paying 7.5% transaction fee on a margin of 1%.
This is why EC was far more widely accepted, although even that was too expensive for small places, such as farmers selling stuff on the market.
Such studies have also been used to arrive at the EU interchange cap.
[0]: http://www.steinbeis-research.de/images/pdf-documents/CFP_Co...
But yes tax avoidance is a huge problem in restaurants in Germany.
a) I don't want to feed the Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Whatever leach earning a few cents of every transaction.
But if banks wanted, they could actually track the serial codes on the bills around. And since often cash is used in only 1 hop (so ATM -> you -> shop -> bank) they could know pretty well where you spent your money.
A quick reference: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9948081
E.g. about China: "According to schedule, by late 2015, the serial number of every Rmb100 note withdrawn from banks by members of the public can be traced."
That doesn't include how much you spend exactly. And it only works most of the time (what if my money gets used as change for another customer?).
Also, been a couple of times in the situation where either the shop's card terminal was malfunctioning, or the bank had some issues, and the card payment was impossible. Without cash you'd be helpless in such a situation, whereas cash = power & independence.
There's the labor costs of handling cash - counting it, moving it, organizing it, accounting for it, making sure there's enough change to run a shift; the cost of storing and transporting it - safes, cash draws, key management, money transport/money transport companies; and the cost of loss due to theft, mistakes, and mismanagement.
I'm not saying that the cost of cash is more than the cost of card, I'm simply saying its not anywhere near free.
https://qz.com/123642/physical-money-costs-americans-more-th...
>But new research from Tufts University aims to highlight the pain points of cash, where digital currency can break in. The use of physical bills costs US consumers, businesses and the government at least $200 billion each year—about $1,739 per household. Here are the main reasons why:
>Small businesses don’t lose much money by operating cash-only. But larger businesses spend a significant amount of money dealing with cash—collecting it, sorting it and getting it to the bank without it being stolen. US businesses lose $40 billion a year to cash theft and loss, about 1% of total revenues.
http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2017/02/02/cashless-coffee-sho...
(There's also a potential to increase sales by accepting card.)
https://qz.com/123642/physical-money-costs-americans-more-th...
>larger businesses spend a significant amount of money dealing with cash—collecting it, sorting it and getting it to the bank without it being stolen. US businesses lose $40 billion a year to cash theft and loss, about 1% of total revenues.
Every cashier in Germany (provided they accepted cards in the first place) insisted on "taking" my card, sticking it in the machine for a non-contactless payment, then hand me the machine so I can enter the PIN, then take back the machine, wait for the transaction to finish and then remove the card from the machine and hand me back my card. If that's the standard card-experience, I can imagine why you think cash is quicker...
(At one shop I saw the machine accepted contactless; before the cashier could take my card I quickly paid contactless. The cashier was 50% flabbergasted and 50% upset and seriously doubted I actually paid, until the receipt rolled out to prove it).
I guess Germans are generally very precautious and wouldn't trust contactless debit cards.
Contactless cards also typically have a per-transaction limit in the area of $100~$200, so the amount of damage someone can do without the PIN and before you cancel the card is quite limited. I actually wouldn't be surprised if you do too many transactions in a certain period of time it would ask you to do a PIN transaction.
- fast enough
- no problems with failing electronic payments of all kinds
- more places where it works (electronic payment systems can indeed be an extra cost which matters for small businesses)
- cash doesn't break (cards do)
- still easier to transfer directly between people
- pretty private
On a short trip last month, I surprised a couple of merchants by paying contactlessly with my foreign (EU) card.
That's almost always faster than paying by cash, since there's no need to count the money or make change. The exception is when the cost is €20, and I can hand over a single note.
They are absolutely everywhere since last year more or less, but everybody (esp. cashiers) is always dumbfounded when I use it and it works. Also some of them try to handle your card for you "to insert it in the right way" and since my German is still rather basic I then have to weigh the potential time waste of explaining it's a contactless card with the extra 4-5 seconds for the chip transaction. But I guess that part doesn't really apply to locals.
("kontaktlose karte, nicht einstecken" but they don't listen the first couple times)
Some stores have fucked up the speed of it though by first checking for your store membership account on the card which ruins the flow of the transaction. Often forcing the whole thing to be repeated. It's infuriating.
In addition to a.), I like having full control of my money and not be dependent on some third party when making purchases.
In most countries, we just tap to pay with NFC (except America, where this only works with Apple Pay or Google Wallet). This is most definitely faster than cash. You can actually go to any store and time it on real customers.
Again I owe to my colleague for my lunch because I forgot to pick money in the morning.