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Comment by alanpearce | Hacker News Reader

For anyone confused about the debit card comment: A German debit card isn’t the same as any other. It doesn’t have Visa or MasterCard co-branding like other countries’ debit card, nor a 16 digit number, so it can’t be used online. I would rather have translated Girokarte to bank card, because there are actual debit cards with Visa/MC co-branding which are available in Germany, but less common than other kinds

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Are debit card only German retailers supporting Visa / MasterCard debit cards now?

Many UK banks used to issue Switch/Maestro cards which interoperated with the German bank card system so were accepted in German supermarkets, but these got phased out for Visa / MasterCard debit around 10 years ago meaning I had to start using cash everywhere.

I've never heard of Switch, but to my knowledge there is nothing about Maestro that integrates specifically with the German banking system. It just so happens that German debit cards are typically co-branded as Maestro (and nowadays sometimes V-Pay), which is why it was commonly accepted. The fact that fees were lower than credit cards probably played a significant role in that.

When the EU capped the interchange fees in 2015, many retailers started accepting MasterCard and Visa here. AMEX is exempt from the regulation since it's a three-party system and less commonly accepted. I'm not aware of any retailers that accept MC/Visa debit, but not credit cards or vice versa.

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