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Comment by juanmirocks | Hacker News Reader

No. You are not misunderstanding me. You are right that there are several European countries with a well spread normalization of using credit cards. In the European countries that I've spent most of my life, and which are also some of the biggest ones (Germany, France, Spain) have still IMO a poor acceptance of credit cards. -- In contrast, for example, in London you can pretty much live without cash whatsoever.

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What is so bad to pay with Cash? It's anonymous and sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.). Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).

> Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but are you arguing that it's good restaurants evade taxes because it keeps their prices low?

Yeah, that's not really a good point. But the other two points stand and are two very good points.

Totally legit reason in some countries. In Czech republic this became such a topic that half a year ago the government implemented a new system. Now every single payment cash or cashless has to be sent in real time to central gov server. This also means that every merchant has to have digital terminal so almost all of them accept credit cards.

Many restaurants (especially those with good service + good price) had to increase their prices a lot since then.

> Totally legit reason in some countries.

Sorry but what is a legit reason and it's a legit reason for what?

I’m with you that Cash has the benefits of anonymity and no fees. However, it’s also inconvenient, specially when you are traveling. Digital transactions are also faster. — On a side note, that’s why I’m, besides all the hype, a strong believer of cryptocurrencies.

> sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.)

The EU also recently introduced and controls on credit card fees (that a merchant pays) with the aim of making it as cheap to transact as cash. That is of course only true if cash isn't being used to avoid taxation.

There is also a cost involved with handling cash. I don't know exactly how those costs add up relative to other payment methods, but I do know that certainly here in Sweden more and more shops and restaurants have stopped accepting cash all together, so presumably cost is non-trivial.

You can go without cash for a lot on Germany. Train tickets, groceries, cinema, restaurants, bars.. All of those and more work fine without cash (you need Maestro, but everyone has one of those).

It fails if you want to buy food in the streets maybe, not every Doner can be paid by card.

But.. that's normal and aligns with what I see here in Singapore now: Cashless, unless small food shop/hawker place or something similar.

Germany doesn't accept _credit cards_ on a large scale. It does support paying with a card made of plastic usually..

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