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Comment by Hamuko | Hacker News Reader

In Finland pretty much all places support NFC cards and by extension Apple Pay. Yet to come across a place where it didn't work.

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Same in Denmark. If you don't support contactless payments that basically means you're not in business.

That said, people mostly use cards; potentially because the bank apps that existed before were just really awful and didn't work the majority of the time. But Google Pay and Fitbit Pay work great.

Same in Canada, I'd estimate 80%+ of places I go to support NFC payment - though I live in a major city so it might be less in more rural areas.

I'm on the tail end of backpacking around Europe. This isn't just Finland, it's the entirety of Europe + UK. I was the only one with a chip, explaining to everyone that the US largely doesn't have touch to pay cards.

What countries have you been to? Germany is quite infamous for having many places that still only accept cash. And when I was in France half a year ago, many places had card readers that wouldn't accept contactless payments.

By the way, the UK is still in Europe, even if they have left the EU :)

Try renting a car with sixt. They dont support apple pay nor nfc/contactless payment. It's the only company (besides my local coffeeshop, cant blame them whehe) I found in The Netherlands that is behind.

I think Europe got rid of magstripes 15 years ago. IIRC 2005 was the deadline.

Almost, there was still a few places using them. The introduction of PSD2 and Strong Customer Authentication in September 2019 means that banks aren’t allowed to accept magstripe transactions anywhere in the EEA.

My last magstripe transaction in Finland was in 2010 at a local supermarket that upgraded late.

I've never paid with a magstripe in Finland. I only remember having some kind of a loyalty program card that required a swipe.

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