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Comment by codegeek | Hacker News Reader

As an american, I find it strange that cash is faster. Most people who pay cash need to wait to get the change back unless they know the total beforehand and happen to have exact change. In the US, credit card machines are very fast even the chip enabled ones.

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

View on HN

Cash workflow:

- 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

Credit cards don't require a PIN. Just get a credit card and pay it off every month. Free points!

America has much higher "rewards" than anywhere else. The reward money comes straight out of merchant fees.

Exactly. I'll continue to use my card whenever possible to save at least 2% on every transaction. But this comes at the cost of getting my CC data stolen from shitty POSs 1-2 times a year. Small inconvenience, but worth it.

The merchant fees do fund a substantial portion of the rewards programs for cards.

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...

I think that only applies to the US. My credit card has a PIN. You don't need it for contactless payments but they are limited to €30.

In India all credit card transactions need a PIN after the card is swiped.

Chip cards in most places in the world require a PIN. It's only the US where (I've ever seen) chip-and-signature (which is a horrible and flawed implementation).

Australia: Tap for anything under $100, no PIN, choose whether or not you want a receipt, done.

In Germany credit cards are very uncommon. We use debit cards, many places don't accept credit cards (but debit cards), some places accept only cash. Paying with a credit card also has a fee while paying by cash or debit cards is free.

Note for the American readers:

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.

Is this something that only triggers above a certain threshold? On the east coast, whenever I go to the grocery store, its just insert chip and press ok. I've never had to sign or enter a pin.

No, everywhere else in the world (basically) it's chip-and-PIN. In the US, it seems to be chip-and-signature (which defeats one of the biggest benefits of chip cards).

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.

This is called "expedited checkout". This is a merchant option to help speed up the checkout process. However the merchant is then taking all responsibility for fraudulent transactions.

Many US-based stores only bother with a signature for amounts over a certain threshold (often $50).

I've seen it typically trigger above $50 at grocery stores in the US.

I always just scribble or write celebrity names, since there's no security benefit to a signature.

In the US, the credit card security comes from the vantage of "it's quite literally.... not your money". If there are any failures in security, the bank pays, thus ease of use is of greatest concern to the consumer.

In the USA, its rare that you'd have to sign for anything under $20.

I think maybe this is a cultural thing. In Europe it seems people associate "credit" with "being in debt" which of course isn't (necessarily) true. It just means someone else is on the line until you reconcile, and this is the beauty of credit cards – they make it tremendously easy to safeguard your own money. Just make sure to pay off the bill at the end of the month and everything is solid.

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.

I love signature, because I play the credit card sign up game. Hard to remember PINs when you open a card a month.

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.

As a non-american I have to ask: why sign up for new credit cards all the time?

Because credit card companies offer incentives to sign up for their cards. A lot of people here regularly carry a lot of debt on their cards, and the credit card companies know if they give those users more cards to juggle around their debt on, they can leach more money from them.

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'm British, and while some people have credit cards, most people I know don't. I have a bank debit card and I use the single card to pay for pretty much everything I don't pay for directly with cash. I have zero debt, because I always pay up front for everything.

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 use a (n.b. singular, not multiple) credit card from AMEX for the benefits. (Particularly excellent travel insurance and car rental benefits.) I make sure to never spend more than I can pay off at the end of the month, so that I don't actually ever get into debt. My own money is resting nicely in a bank account until the credit card bill arrives.

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.

I used to agree regarding pin vs sign, until reading on here today how much slower European systems seem to be.

Note for the European readers:

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.

I have a credit card from Luxembourg that is somehow set up to ask for signature, even though it can do PIN just fine, and I really don't recommend this setting in Europe, it's a massive pain in the ass since most merchants aren't equipped to deal with that. You end up having to sign the merchant's receipt with a pen like you're back in 1970, it takes a lot more time than entering your PIN (or better yet, contactless without PIN these days).

(And I did complain to their customer service, but they won't change the setting).

Depends on the country, in many EU countries I find chip+sign payments to be way faster than chip+PIN. Every now and then you run into a cashier that gets confused by chip+sign, but not often enough to justify switching back to chip+PIN in my experience.

In Canada:

- 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.

Cash Workflow:

- 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.

But you left out the step of having to get the cash money into your pocket to begin with. I haven't touched cash in many years, but back when I did use cash it was always a pain having to go to the bank, or an ATM, or remembering to ask for money back once debit cards became a thing.

funnily I often get my cash when buying groceries.

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.

I agreed. Paying with card is fraught with slow terminals, bad card readers, many prompts in a row (Credit or debt, is this the right amount, do you want to donate $1 to something, do you want it all on one card, would you like to sign up for a store credit card, do you want cash back, how much, do you want a receipt?). For some reason, these all have a 2-5 second delay between them. I could make a system on a $2 arduino that was faster.

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.

Cash workflow:

- 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?

Around my area in the Northeast of the US, Apple Pay is becoming ubiquitous. I just put my iPhone near the reader and use touch id. It takes seconds at most and I don't have to expose my wallet to would-be muggers.

- You get asked if you want cash back

- You get asked if you want to donate to (charity/cause)

...

Credit card workflow in Australia for anything under $100:

- 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.

I was in Germany a few days ago. My credit card workflow:

- 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.

but you have to have a credit card that does that :) I for example don't have one, even though I do have a credit card for travels. Most Germans I know also don't want one because they usually cost extra money. And that is apart from the fact that the entire name 'Kreditkarte' -> credit card, implies one requires credit i.e don't have that money, not an easy sell here. Paying a yearly fee for having to look as if one needs credit :)

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

Germans have debit cards, which are also contactless. I never had to enter a pin when doing contactless.

Where the hell do you live that people think you are broke if you pay by card? And even then, who cares. Also, in supermarkets or so, there is a line and most of the time I see people respect privacy... payment by card is certainly faster unless you know in advance the amount and you already have the money ready in your hands...

And I wish we could solves the coin changes from Cash.

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.

- Or you approach your wallet to the reader and pay via NFC.

- Done.

In america prices are always cent-specific (2.85, 3.78). Berlin, much like Argentina (cash strong markets) have rounded prices for everything, its actually much faster. What ist errible is the waste of time going to an atm frequently, or handling lots of petty coins or bills.

Cards are definitely more convenient.

In Germany the price advertised is the price paid. Not so in America due to taxes and fees.

One thing I like about Square from an independent merchant standpoint is that I can mark that an item's price should be considered to include all relevant taxes & fees. This allows for listing prices in round increments. This is more helpful for cash transactions because most people only cary bills so I mostly only have bills to hand back as change. It is easier for me to deal in whole dollar or at least quarter increments so I never have to worry about pennies, nickels or dimes. For cards, I can charge arbitrary amounts and it doesn't affect me or the customer at all. Granted, you have to do a little math up front for each item to ensure you're getting the right profit per sale, but it's negligible to the amount saved by not having to count change.

Germany has the VAT, they just require that vendors hide it from the consumer.

"Hide" as in "the calculation is done in multiple lines on each receipt with the amount of VAT clearly spelled out"? Germany has some hidden taxes in the supermarket (on alcohol, tobacco, and coffee) but VAT is absolutely visible.

VAT is part of the itemized receipt. More importantly, as the parent says, advertised prices must include VAT. This is different from the US, where sales tax is added as a last step, and advertised prices are always excluding tax.

> Berlin...have rounded prices for everything

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.

Yes, dm's prices are great. That's one of the reasons why I prefer it over Rossmann and Müller.

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).

Cards used to be more convenient in the US. But once they started putting in the chips the verification process takes ages. I can complete the whole transaction in cash in the time it takes the chip reader to get itself sorted.

Not only that, but you also have to either carry your small coins around so you can use them up or you have to collect them and then redeem them all for bills or deposit them. This is a royal pain. I have so much change lying around the house that I haven't bothered to count and redeem.

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.

Every evening I put all spare change from my trouser pockets into a large glass jar next to the door. Once a year I reedem the money and have a really nice dinner.

Do you count the change before you redeem it? That is a huge time-suck for me, and I hate doing it.

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.

If you get bags for change (like shops use) and split everything by denomination and amount it makes it a little easier.

Are you serious? If you take it to the bank, they have change counting machines. Depending on how much you bring in, it takes about 1-5 minutes for the machine to count. In the US we have a company called CoinStar that has kiosks in every major grocery store chain which does the same thing. They take a small percentage, but we're talking about coins here, so it's probably less than a dollar per transaction.

I've taken change to banks that didn't have change counting machines. The tellers counted the change by hand. I was shocked.

CoinStar’s fee is 11.9%, according to their website[1] - I wouldn’t call that small.

[1] http://www.coinstar.com/HelpCenter

Not small by percentage, but the cost for the time saved is small. Might cost you $15 to save 2 hours or more.

Of course, just take it to the bank and they'll do it for you for free.

ha .. same here .. once a year on 'weltspartag' i gift this money to the kids and they split it up.

also i use it to get some change for the occasional buns

I'm surprised it's not mentioned on other comments, but in Japan, the whole thing is automated. The cashier feeds the cash notes / coins into a machine, and the machine spits out the exact change. It's super-fast, even when the cashier counts your change in front of your eyes, and lays it out neatly onto a tray[0].

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

Pretty normal in Norway as well. Cashier feeds notes into machine, customer drops coins in coin machine. Usually pretty fast if the machine reads the coins/notes immediately.

This happens in grocery stores in the US but many other stores don't have enough volume to bother.

That has turned out to be the comedy of the cash systems in the US. As I noticed the cash readers / auto change makers being installed in a lot of locations, it was just in time to rarely be used due to the shift to everyone using cards.

In efficient stores (e.g. Aldi in Germany and branches in Switzerland and Austria) the cashiers start taking the change into the hand the moment you say you pay cash. They do that up to the next bill and if you pay with a higher bill, picking up extra bills from the registry is really fast. Whereas with a credit card you put the card in, wait until the remote system decides if you should use your PIN or signature, then either put the pin in or wait until the cashier gives you the thing to sign and sign it. And if you're really unlucky the store has a system that looks you up in their customer database if you pay by card which adds another couple seconds.

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.

You forget that American cashiers are incapable of arithmetic.

I've talked to an Aldi employee as of late and he said Aldi is proud to now have the fastest Card processing of all the German stores (within the regulatory limits: you have to put in your PIN or sign the receipts except for those fancy/scary NFC chips) and the Cash workflow is still faster, according to their own statistics. Consider that I already look into my purse while standing in line to get an overview of my available coins and that the cashier starts to collect the likely change the moment they tell you the total amount. This speeds up the process considerable compared to the – likely more cash-inexperienced if I follow your description – American cashiers.

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.

I assume you talk about Aldi Süd? Their card handling is pretty fast and they can even start scanning the next customer's items while the machine is still processing. Aldi Nord on the other is hand is (while still faster than average) not particularly noteworthy.

> This speeds up the process considerable compared to the – likely more cash-inexperienced if I follow your description – American cashiers.

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.

Your parent comment was about Aldi. They have extremely fast cashiers, which is one of their cost reduction tactics.

I've found cash to be much faster and more pleasent than card for eating out.

- 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.

At the restaurants I frequent you can now either pay with an app on my phone or pay at a tablet/device that sits on the table. It is super convenient and so fast.

In countries where paying by card is common, the waiter will assume this and bring the terminal.

You can make it explicit, by having a card visible when you ask for the bill.

Speaking for America, where it's common to pay by card, I have never had a waiter bring a terminal to the table.

They take your card away and bring back a card receipt for you to sign & leave a tip on.

The mobile card readers are very uncommon in the US. In Canada, they're everywhere.

Numerous large restaurant chains in the US (eg Olive Garden) have installed small interactive screens at every table that act as a terminal, that do other things including take orders. When your meal is finished you pay by card at the machine and leave (it prints your receipt as well). I would expect this premise to essentially spread everywhere among non-fast-food chains.

In Europe, pretty much every restaurant, and many bars and cafés, have portable card readers. (If they don't, then they don't take payment at the table.)

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/

In a German supermarket there are two notable differences:

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.

Say hello to contactless https://www.visa.co.uk/products/visa-contactless/

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.

I'm sure I've used this in Germany many times at Lidl and other supermarkets.

NFC payment has been rolling out more and more over the past couple years. Edeka is probably the biggest exception, I'm waiting very impatiently for them to catch up.

Edeka is (despite its appearance) not a chain but just a common brand used by lots of independent merchants without many rules[0]. Some Edeka stores therefore introduced contactless payments years ago, some never will. Best is to talk to the owner (they usually just have one or a few stores) – I have been successful with "mine".

[0]: In contrast to e.g. Rewe which is also mostly operated by independent merchants but has strict rules for those.

Further to this, I've actually found in Canada I use Android Pay more and more often now that it's available. The whole country is shifting to contactless and it's incredibly useful to just be able to pull out my phone and make a purchase.

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.

It's super fun and easy. But

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.

> A) there is a risk as everyone can create a stripe account and buy a charger. Personally I would never notice.

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.

For me it's a different world anyway. Currently I carry about $300 in 4 currencies, a debit card and a credit card. I travel a lot and without a stack like this I would have been stuck many times.

The credit card never really saved me. It really just is there to make life a little easier.

I just got back from a four-country trip (3 currencies) and having a credit card was very useful for hotels and car rental places that want to "pre-authorize" charges (often 250 EUR or more).

When I tried using my debit card and they ended up taking the money and then refunding it over a week later.

Good point. I don't drive car but in western countries I basically had to pay the bikes worth as deposit because I didn't carry a credit card. Plus this was seen as super unusual (even having a this high euro amount on hand was seen as suspect)

I can't even count the number of times I've been stuck behind someone in Rewe, waiting while they scrounge around in their purse or wallet for those final few cents. It is far from uncommon, at least where I live.

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.

I've never lived in Germany, only visited as a tourist a few times to several different cities.

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.

It comes down to the card, not store. Many German cards require you to sign (actually stores bypass the card entirely and just use it to read your account number and make you sign a SEPA direct debit mandate).

Plus, when paying by card even if you dont want a receipt you need to wait for the merchant receipt to be printed out before the transaction is complete. With cash if you dont need the receipt and pay the correct sum you can be on your toes.

New CC cards with chip e.g. Visa/DKB have also PINs without being a debit card.

You actually have support for contactless and thusly Apple Pay in a load of places in Berlin, people just don't know about it. The look of shock on the clerk's face when I insisted that yes, I can pay by waving my phone.

One factor that contributes to making cash slower in USA is the fact that the price displayed isn't the price you have to pay (because of taxes added at checkout time). You end up having to handle random amount of small change for something that ended up being $10.21 (but advertised as $9.99).

In most EU countries, the item would be priced at €10, you would pay with a €10 bill and move on.

Parting with your money shouldn't be easy :)

Just count your cash as you queue. Though that whole thing in the US of showing prices not including tax seems pretty wack, what's the point ?

*Credit card workflow: - Cashier tells you the total amount

- 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

You missed the part when they are in holidays in Europa or Asia and realize that American whatever credit card is usually not accepted and they begin shouting at everyone what kind of third world country this is.

Disclaimer: I've seen exactly this a few times

You obviously have never been to a Home Depot or Lowes on a weekend and watched in abject horror how long it takes most people to navigate the pin pad to complete their CC purchase! The speed with which the transaction is completed is 100% dependent on the ability of the card holder to navigate all the prompts. At most stores I now have to wade through 4-5 prompts for input before my transaction is complete, this takes up to 30 seconds. This is nowhere near as fast as cash is if one is prepared and has their money out.

You're oversimplifying it. At some places (eg Subway), it was about 1 second timing for credit cards. At most stores, you would have to do things like say whether it was credit or debit, tell it yes/no to cash back, and tell it yes/no to whether amount is OK. All of them seemingly do it a different way. So, if you're used to it, the process might take several seconds. If you're not, significantly longer. Under Chip and PIN, you have that plus a several second wait in most places I go.

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).

As an American living in Hong Kong:

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.

> - You swipe card/insert in chip reader > > - Done

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).

> Credit card workflow:

> - 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.

Contactless payments don't need PIN (up to some small but comfortable amount) and go through almost instantly.

But Germans don't trust contactless payment because in theory anybody could hold a card reader against your wallet while you're innocently waiting in some line.

And just what would they do with it?

That seems an easy way to get your merchant account cancelled very, very quickly.

But why would they care? Stripe does payments every 3 days or so and you can easily create more accounts. I never ever checked my credit card history, and I assume many people who only use it as secondary payment system don't. It's easy as fuck therefore IMO a valid scenario.

Without the CVC code, Stripe isn't going to accept the payment.

Even if it did, the bank is likely to block the transaction, or call/text for verification.

> CVC code

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

Not to mention half of the database leaks in recent years, especially of porn sites, contained them anyway

The defence against that for me is that I have like 6 rfid enabled cards in my wallet, between my Oyster Card, student ID, library card, key card to access my work building, you can't scan any of them without taking it out individually.

I carry two contactless cards: the metro pass and an office key. They are just taped together (because I want to make sure I always have both) and still reliably work, so I doubt you are protected.

I have tried many times to use a single one of them without the other 5 interfering and it has literally never worked.

I tried to use android pay for a few months. In theory its great (and it's great when it works!) but like 30% of the time it doesn't really work the first time, you have to play around with it on the card reader. Then the phone vibrates like it worked but nothing happens. You look at the phone and it says "please hold the card to the reader again." and despite Subway accepting android pay (and the cashiers insisting that it works for everyone else) whenever I try to use it there I get a message "please insert card." I was never able to figure out the workflow to get it to work on a vending machine. Also the first time I used it I froze the register.

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)

Contactless debit cards are a lot more reliable than phones, mainly because they have one unique job. My card plays up now and again but that is only since it went through the tumble dryer, which distorted the card and seems to have affected the reliability of the NFC chip, in practice this means I sometimes need to tap twice.

Another difference between American and other systems. Credit cards in US don't have PIN numbers. Only Debit cards have PIN.

Yeah, but you have to sign, which is worse.

They do have PINs, just most people don't know what they are. You can use the PIN to withdraw cash from an ATM at a ridiculous interest rate. I recently was using my credit card in Iceland at a gas pump where I was prompted for a PIN.

That's because, as I was shocked to find out, most POS in the US don't ask for a PIN! Convenient indeed, until someone gets ahold of your card.

Almost all credit cards are 0 liability to the consumer. Even if someone gets a hold of my card, I can call the credit card company and get all fraud charges reversed. That's why I personally always use a credit card EVERYWHERE. I hate cash and I hate to wait in lines. But sure, they have an electronic trail on me which frankly, I don't care too much about. If the Govt wants to get you, they WILL get you.

"Almost all credit cards are 0 liability to the consumer. Even if someone gets a hold of my card, I can call the credit card company and get all fraud charges reversed."

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.

Americans are used to entering PINs on debit cards, but not credit. However, in my recent experience in Iceland & Germany, most POS don't ask for a PIN on credit transactions either. The only time I was asked for a PIN on a credit card was at a gas pump.

That however is because of your American card and not the POS systems usually not asking.

I have to verify any transaction over 20$ with my Swiss credit card for example. Even on contactless

This isn't shocking if you understand the different legal context around credit cards in the US.

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.

You commonly don't have to do that for small transactions in your usual country.

At least in the five years that I've been in America, the credit card workflow is almost never like that. It's more like

- 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.

You missed the step where the digital pen on a string doesn't work to sign the touch pad followed by using your finger.

Here in Singapore they have started using automated cash machines the teller tells you the amount you feed it into the machine. The machine gives change. I use it for getting rid of all the coins once in a while and I don't have to count the coine just drop all the coins I have. If I drop in to much it I returns notes back if pposible. If the coins at a bank coin depositor they charge $0.01 per coin so if you are depositing at the bank you loose 10-20% for 5-10c coins.

For many people credit card payment also means: - verify statement at the end of the month.

Which is annoying and time-consuming.

How about the NFC (Apple/Samsung Pay) workflow:

- 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

I found the whole swipe/insert thing really painfully slow and paid cash all the time.

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.

I find the workflow with the new chip cards much less convenient to the point that I'm starting to prefer cash or Android Pay if it's available. Even though I lose the 2% cashback bribe.

Which card is that, that takes away the incentive? I use Apple Pay pretty frequently and still get my cashback rate, or double points incentives on the cards that I use.

Among others the Citi Double Cash, earned in 2 steps:

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're right, I worded that poorly. I meant only for when I pay with cash I lose the 2%.

I think it only takes standing in a few long lines to compare cash vs. card, to understand your analysis does not reflect reality(?)

Contactless workflow:

- You hold your card/device near the screen for about a second

- It authorises in a few secs

- Done

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