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Comment by retrac98 | Hacker News Reader

Banking in the states must be pretty awful, because as someone living in the UK, I don't think there's anything here I don't already get with my existing bank accounts.

I can pay with my phone or a tap of my card pretty much everywhere, most banks have pretty advanced apps and APIs now, I don't think credit cards (or credit card debt) is as much of a "thing" here either.

I'm not saying it's bad, it looks nice and convenient, but it's not really a world changing banking disruption either. It just looks like an Apple branded version of what I've already had for years.

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Banks in the US generally don't have APIs and adoption of contactless payments is not great.

I think that's the biggest thing here - you have a bunch of customers who will be incentivized to use contactless for better rewards. That should drive more people to use it and more stores to support it.

Contactless is already ubiquitous in the UK, everything from the local corner shop to the guy selling pizza at the last public event I went to takes it.

It's rare I have to put my pin in these days since I don't have many single transactions over 30 quid.

That's one of the funny differences I've seen between UK and US. Contactless is ubiquitous in the UK, and less so in the US. But there is no £30 limit on contactless payments in the US. I've used tap-to-pay with Apple Pay to spend hundreds of dollars in a single purchase, no pin, no signature, no problem.

A lot of people using contactless in the UK are using debit cards not credit cards which lack (here at least) the strong fraud protections that credit cards do - which is one of the reasons I put my new computer on my partners card then transferred the money to her bank to bank to settle it, so the £30 limit without pin acts as a brake on a stolen card giving the person who lost it time to report it as lost.

It used to be £15 but well inflation is a thing.

These are different things. There's a £30 limit on Android/Apple payments, and contactless cards if the payment terminal only supports contactless. If they have a new enough terminal that also directly supports Apple/Android pay, there is no cap.

There is a list of possible restrictions (when the PIN is asked) which are different per countries. Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207435

The £30 Apple Pay limit in the UK is becoming less of a thing. In major retailers that accept Apple Pay I have used my phone to pay for items into the hundreds of pounds without issue.

Funny you mention PINs. We did finally get chipped cards in the US, but it’s “chip and signature” so we’re missing some of the security improvements. Harder to skim at least?

Phone and watch based NFC will eventually displace that I think.

I personally prefer Chip and Signature. We have the same system in Hong Kong where most cards have a Chip and PIN but most card readers will just ask for your signature anyway. It puts the burden on the merchant to check the signature instead of the cardholder to not have their PIN guessed/overseen. We also seem to have no limit on PayWave (contactless) transactions but for larger purchasers the merchant may ask for a signature over the "No Signature Required" slip anyway.

> It puts the burden on the merchant to check the signature instead of the cardholder to not have their PIN guessed/overseen

Maybe it's different in HK, but here in US and A I literally just make random scribbles (or sometimes just write "void" for kicks) and nothing is ever checked.

Works the same in HK but if you notice a suspicious transaction you can get it reversed when the signature doesn't match. If you use the PIN it's a lot harder to reverse.

Agreed with sibling comment, here in the US signatures are never checked. I've had chip cards for years and can't remember it happening once.

I've noticed this year that a lot of card system vendors have updated their software to enable contactless on their card machines. I actually use my contactless card all over the place in the US, and I was even shocked and surprised to see that the MARC vending machines in Baltimore/DC supporting contactless to buy train tickets.

The number of US customers actually receiving the cards and being trained to use them is very low, and that's a problem.

As an aside, I actually like plain contactless better than Apple Pay. It's overall a faster transaction, no fussing with phone unlocks. I don't really care whether or not it's more or less secure - that's my bank's problem, not mine.

I’m a fan of my Apple Watch for that. Quicker than getting a phone out, no need to unlock, and I always have it even without my wallet.

I have an Apple Watch, weirdly I don't find myself doing that a lot. Something about turning the screen around and being unable to see it. Although I think the newer watch versions have a better interface that comes up quicker. I might want to try using it more often.

Still, you have to admit that having a $400 watch as a barrier vs. a card that my bank gave me for free is a bit of an advantage toward the contactless card.

For sure, it's just a convenient feature if you already have one. If you haven't used it, the flow is:

    1) Double press the side button (not the crown)
    2) Put watch on reader

Optionally you can swipe left/right to change which card you're using, but it's immediately ready to go with the default one.

Same. Basically anyone with a newer Veriphone system (which everyone seemed to roll out back when we switched to chip) seems to support it. I use Google Pay, so it's not Apple-specific anyhow. But it's so much faster to process than the chip cards, even if I already had both my phone and card in my hand.

As someone who's done work on payment systems for both countries (online payments only).

In the US:

Credit cards have a bit better protections than bank accounts do. For example for bank transfers[0], if you wait a few days after finding out there is a fraudulent transaction, you are liable for $500. (if you reported it right away, it's only $50 liability). Credit cards max at $50 liability.

ACH for US banks is absolutely horrible. It's slow and just doesn't work well. FedNow that was just announced could help, but that's 5 years out (at least). TheClearingHouse has an instant payments platform out there, but only had 50% adoption right now, and costs a flat cost per transaction. Credit Cards are instant (ish), but have super high fees.

The US has thousands of banks (~5000), many of which are smaller local banks. Getting all these banks to be on a common system is hard.

In the UK:

You have BACS, which has some really nice properties (like when moving between banks, your auto-pay moves with you), but it has warts on it. Like ACH, all payments are successful after it's submitted, but you don't find out about rejects (like insufficient funds) until a day or 2 later.

UK has Faster Payments rails, but it is absurdly expensive (1-5 pounds per payment (EDIT: THIS IS WRONG)). It's same day, which is awesome, but it could be better.

UK does a lot more debit payments than the US, likely because debit in the US just has not-great consumer protections today.

The UK also has many fewer banks (~300), so getting them on common systems is a bit easier.

[0] https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-580.html

I don’t understand your comment about faster payments. At least for sending money between people it appears to be free and basically instant to transfer money. Maybe the bank just swallows the fee or doesn’t have to pay it for some reason.

How is Faster Payments that expensive? I can't imagine online banks like Monzo & Starling who offer free accounts, no fees whatsoever and thus very low profit margin per customer are paying that.

I had bad data apparently. It looks like some businesses (for business use cases) are charged that amount potentially, but it looks like the service ended up mainly being free. My bad.

For what it's worth, my banks have these features other than Daily Cash. That feature is something I don't think I've seen before.

> It just looks like an Apple branded version of what I've already had for years.

It is an Apple branded Mastercard, with some level of iPhone integration. It is something you've had for years.

What credit card do you have that:

* gives you cash back immediately after transaction

* and has no foreign transaction fees

* and has no late fees

* and has no annual fee

* and conveniently shows you the location of the transaction

* and has one click access to support via iMessage

It's a pretty nice package of features. Sure, it's not the highest cash back ever, but most people don't have time to be on HN and nerd out over credit card terms all day and this is great card for those people. I really hope they expand to more countries.

Credit cards are less of a thing in the uk. Cash back isn’t so common or so large because the merchant fees are much lower so there’s nowhere for the cash to come from. People also (as far as I’m aware) don’t buy as much on credit as they do in the US and they don’t accrue as interest on that debt either.

So a lot of these points are different between the US and UK (eg 1% cashback is quite a lot), and there aren’t a great number of UK credit cards that do have an annual fee (and if they do it is small).

Having no forex fee (and good exchange rates) tends to be a loss-leader for some cards in the UK (until they become known as a very cheap way to change money and start losing more and more on it).

Lots of credit-card related features (eg regarding late fees) matter less because a lot of the competition isn’t with credit cards but with debit cards (but then again banks tend to charge steep overdraft fees).

Contactless, a nice app, merchant location, and a messaging system for customer support is pretty common (for offerings like those mentioned by the GP). Messaging turns out to be a great interface because:

- the app can help guess what you want in common cases (eg moving house)

- it’s asynchronous so no one is wasting time on hold if it’s busy

- it’s text so automated systems stand a better chance of getting good quality data (like the new address) and guessing what the query is

Cards/bank accounts with fancy apps have been becoming a thing in the uk for perhaps 6-7 years and they’ve been becoming a bigger popular widely used thing in the past 3-5 years. So lots of these features can seem quite familiar to people.

It isn't world-changing in the US either, but a lot of people think it is because they aren't familiar with the vast credit card offerings in the US.

Credit card debt is definitely a thing in the US and it's nice that the Apple Card has some visualizations, but they also aren't unique to this card.

- Spending analysis tools: Most large US banks have this on their app or website.

- Cash back: a rather standard feature, and Apple's own rate isn't any better than other alternatives (Citi Double Cash for example). Quite a lot worse if you don't see yourself making most purchases with Apple Pay. Most online purchases will get the paltry 1% rate.

- You can actually get a better discount from Apple.com using other cards, believe it or not. Take the Chase Freedom Unlimited's 1.5% off everything, then add the 2 bonus points using the shopping browser cookie feature on the rewards website, so as long as you buy stuff online you're getting 3.5% off the Apple Store instead of 3%.

- Payment due dates always at the end of the month: Doesn't actually make any sort of a difference, usually due dates only change by a day or two at most.

- Due Date reminders: Email already accomplished this

- Real time fraud protection: Major US Bank cards already do this, usually via SMS or email

- Mapped transactions: I'm pretty sure some other banks do this but I will say it's somewhat helpful/innovative

- The fact that the Apple Card has no numbers or magnetic strip on it is something I consider a disadvantage. Yes, the USA is far behind on going 100% chip and contactless. However, US customers aren't liable for any fraud over $50 and most card issuers make that dollar amount zero.

Edit: I'm noticing that the Apple Card does allow a semi-permanent number to be generated, which does require you to have your phone around to look at it, it seems.

I don't care if someone steals my credit card number. That's not my problem. It's my bank's problem.

Not being able to use a credit card at a particular merchant because their point of sale system only has a card swiper is a problem to me. (Edit: Seems that Apple card has a magnetic strip. But if a merchant has to type in more info than the last 4 digits into their POS system you can't use an Apple Card).

I will say, in the US, the support for chip cards is now at nearly 100% and this year contactless has made major strides.

You will care when someone steals your number, although it likely won't be from the card.

Banks will often make you jump through hoops when something goes really wrong, even when they are at fault.

> I don't care if someone steals my credit card number. That's not my problem. It's my bank's problem.

Nothing is free. We all pay for fraud indirectly. Regardless, even if you end paying no money, you still end up paying with your time.

I've had to tell my bank "it wasn't me" and it was a relatively quick process.

Also, most sketchy things are caught by the usage pattern algorithms before the transaction is even authorized. If I just blatantly emailed my card number to someone in Nigeria and they tried to buy a bunch of stuff there it would never go through in the first place.

Keeping some short numeric digit a secret seems like a rather vain effort to me.

This is separate from my desire for security to increase. Yes, I want security to continually improve. But the lack of client side security in the US doesn't actually impact consumers in a significant way, if you ask me.

Right, after which some combination of the bank and the vendor eat the cost of the fraud. This in turn drives up prices and fees.

Regarding time investment, you are just rolling the dice. Most of the time the transaction will just reverse. Some times you will have to fight it.

Also, the big thing that chips bring is related to duplication. The cards can’t be duplicated and transactions can’t be duplicated. The PIN is just a second factor. This is distinct from US Debit PINs, which are the only “secure” part of that system.

Btw, the Apple Card does have a magstripe.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/27/18281071/how-apple-credit...

> The physical Apple Card, of course, has no number. The app displays the last 4 digits of the card number that is on the mag stripe of the card only, you never see the full card number.

So the card has a magstripe, and therefore, is no different than a regular card.

It's just that you now have to confuse your cashiers who are looking for verification info on the card when they're putting it into their point of sale systems.

I don't care if someone steals my credit card number. That's not my problem. It's my bank's problem.

This is spot on. I refuse to use or even have a debit card issued for my actual bank account. Almost everything goes through CC's, so worst case, I have at least one layer between "my" money. As a bonus none of my CC's are from my bank, and I have several from different major vendors, so unless a lot of things go wrong at once, I should always have access to at least some amount of credit.

It's also made budgeting and tracking my spend much easier, since I don't want to pay interest on any of these things, and the tools for managing credit cards tend to be better than what I've seen for checking/savings accounts.

Most of the software surrounding existing cards (even the best ones like Chase Sapphire Reserve, and Amex Platinum) is pretty bad.

Apple’s software improvements will be worth it for that alone, but that plus the focus on transaction privacy makes it something that stands out.

Once it’s available I’ll cancel my CSR and Amex and use the Apple Card for all transactions.

I don't see how transaction privacy is improved significantly.

Goldman Sachs still sees every transaction, just like any other credit card's issuing bank.

If I want transaction privacy I use cash, full stop. There is no other solution that's guaranteed to be anonymous.

The banking in the US is fine. The experience varies a lot based on where you live, however, and how well the local retailers have implemented their POS system. I also have the same abilities you describe, and I live in the US, but I live in a major metro area with pretty good technology adoption at the places I shop.

I would say that banking in the US is good from a financial products perspective (we have lower banking fees than the Commonwealth), however our consumer financial products lag (i.e. credit cards, checks, online banking, etc).

It is. It really is. I remember when I first moved to the US (from NZ) and it was like going back in time 10 years in banking.

There's also some completely bananas things that they've only just started to kind of rectify: For automatic payments or to send money to someone online you provide your bank acc# to the recipient and then they tell the bank to give them money from your account.

That's literally how it works - if someone gives you their bank acc# you can't send them money, but 50/50 you can withdraw money from their account.

It gets better. Here's how the "security" works, say you're using ETrade or whatever and you want to link an external account, you give them a bank account number. Then they withdraw some money from that account and ask you to verify how much was withdrawn. Note that it's not the bank that controls the other account verifying you're meant to be able to withdraw money - they're not involved. It's literally etrade (or whoever) ensuring that you own the other account before etrade lets you pull money out.

Think about how insane that is.

I live in the Czech Republic, otherwise a developing country, however also a fintech testbed. I feel 10 years back in time when I'm in Germany. I was surprised how much annoyed I was. I really don't understand the US.

Same thing with mobile networks.

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