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Comment by hyperman1 | Hacker News Reader

I'd have to agree. Everything in the article about Europe is technically correct, but it is such a small slice of the SEPA payments. The article is so misleading it might as well be wrong.

I make payments to the benelux, france, germany, spain and poland, and they go all over the push mechanism. Direct debit is for utilities, and that's about it.

For fraud, my bank provides a gui with active agreements. While I can't cancel an agreement there, I can set a maximum frequency and amount. I put them at once per year max 0.0001 Euro until they get removed.

Non recurring payments over direct debit (Or even worse Clarna) is an instant no. I take another payment method. If grabbing money from my bank without my control is the only option, that's a red flag. I consider the company sleazy enough to go find a competitor, even if it raises the cost.

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My bank in Norway (SBanken, formerly Skandia Bank) allows me to specify a maximum amount that any creditor can ask for per month when using the equivalent of direct debits (and I also get notified in advance of every payment so that I can cancel either the individual payment or the whole agreement if I wish. This is all done via the web or app and takes effect immediately, no need to ask anyone at the bank to do anything. Here it is called AvtaleGiro.

«AvtaleGiro» is such a time saver. Utilities, electricity, internet, road tax, insurance and almost all kinds of recurring payments happens automatically and electronically.

> I make payments to the benelux, france, germany, spain and poland, and they go all over the push mechanism. Direct debit is for utilities, and that's about it.

SEPA direct debit is a really really popular thing in Germany. Most utilities prefer (quite understandably) to pull from you instead of waiting for your transfer. Even landlords usually give you an agreement form to pull your rent out of your account.

I got used to that and recently tried to use a Polish bank account to pay on Amazon and surprisingly it didn't work. Amazon has sent me an automated email with a demand for a (push) transfer, sadly with added fee for the trouble.

Most people in Poland actually do transfers manually, direct debit is not really a thing. On the other hand there's this BLIK thing for instant transfers, even across banks.

I find Blik to be one of the best payment methods ever invented.

It gives you a one-time-use 6-digit code that is valid for no more than two minutes. When the code is given to a merchant, either on line or in person, you get a popup with the amount and merchant name which you need to manually approve. You can give that code out over the phone to a family member who's currently at the store buying things for you, or to a child who's trying to get something for themselves. This is extremely convenient while still being secure, and it allows for secure payments on shared, malware-infested computers.

Some online services also give you the option to remember your device for future use. If you decide to do so, you will get a notification the next time you're trying to pay there, which you still need to approve. This is more convenient than typing in a code, while still being as secure.

This system is pretty resistant to fraud (you always need to approve the amount in your banking app), while allowing for irreversible payments, which merchants like.

> This system is pretty resistant to fraud (you always need to approve the amount in your banking app), while allowing for irreversible payments, which merchants like.

This sounds like a great system, except that irreversible payment part. That’s only a feature for merchants and usually gets used to harm consumers in my experience.

There are also some third parties which utilize the fact that transfers within the same bank are instant - they have bank accounts in all of those and a settlement system built on top of that. You transfer the money to them, and then they send a transfer directly from the bank of recipient. It's nearly instant, but has some limits to it (several thousand euros).

In fact it's quite jarring when you have companies try to do something in Polish market and they don't do basic research into payment methods.

Take for example Luxxotica - I was buying some glasses as a gift yesterday, and they support two payment methods:

- card payment

- PayPal

Paypal hasn't been popular for years with all the other alternatives, and many people are wary of using cards to buy goods over the internet. In fact my card payment was blocked (which essentially never happens in any other methods) and I went to buy the glasses physically at a reseller.

>You transfer the money to them, and then they send a transfer directly from the bank of recipient

Since few years banks also provide APIs for redirecting to transfer form prefilled with payment processor details, so you don't have to enter them manually.

From what I know there is also a different reason for the weirdnesses in Germany. Banks actually charged quite a lot for online transactions from your bank card. German shops are very cost sensitive here (why in many some time ago in most places you could not pay with credit card). So what they do is they use an intermediate that collects all those signed mandates. It even worked fully offline like with credit cards in the old days. It is crazy if you try to read the terms and conditions on a standard supermarket bill.

> I got used to that and recently tried to use a Polish bank account to pay on Amazon and surprisingly it didn't work. Amazon has sent me an automated email with a demand for a (push) transfer, sadly with added fee for the trouble.

That might be a function of Poland not being in the euro zone. AFAIK SEPA Direct Debit is only for transfers in Euro. Even if you tried to use a Euro bank account in Poland, either your bank or Amazon might not have bothered to implement it.

Yep, I did use an EUR account. You may be right about the lack of proper implementation.

Did you have Marketplace charges? These are USD only.

When they launched the SEPA direct debit option a couple years ago I tried it and the debit bounced back.

Eventually I did not have the need for marketplace instances anymore, then I tried it again and it worked.

> SEPA direct debit is a really really popular thing in Germany. Most utilities prefer (quite understandably) to pull from you instead of waiting for your transfer. Even landlords usually give you an agreement form to pull your rent out of your account.

Landlords benefit from it because it makes it harder for your to lower your rent in case there are issues with the place that warrant it. If they can withdraw the rent directly, you'd have to undo that payment, pay the lowered amount manually etc. which makes it more hassle for you and also increases the risk of screwing up.

Not exactly:

You could sign a contract with your landlord, then revoke the so called "SEPA mandate" afterwards and you can forcibly switch to "manual payment" each month, since the SEPA mandate is not necessarily required or a "legally-necessary intrinsic component of the contract" (check for example: https://deutschesmietrecht.de/mietvertrag/662-mietzahlung-ei... )

Tough, depends on which type of relation you want to have to your landlord ;-)

True, that works as well.

Either way as a tenant it's best to do manual payments (even if they're automated on your end) each month so that lowering rent, if necessary, is straightforward.

I'm not sure how it's with other banks, but on both my NL banks revoking the permission is 2 clicks away. If there is an issue that escalates to the need to partially withhold payment, that is the least of your hurdles in NL since you need to get permission from an independent government commission.

Fully agree. In Germany we have a widely used push mechanism (giropay) where you approve the online payment using an app or a dedicated hardware device. It's instant, free for buyer and seller, push, and requires explicit consent for each transfer from the buyer.

It's supported by all major electronics stores. The only exception is Amazon who will do a SEPA pull instead. But there the bank grants you 6 weeks to cancel the deduction if you want to.

Not correct:

Giropay does in fact include fees, though these are usually covered by the seller. (check for example: https://www.unternehmerportal.info/giropay/)

DISCLAIMER: Lead Payment Engineer at an European Challenger Bank, i'm implementing that stuff in the backend, i'm mainly talking to our central bank.

I'm honestly surprised. I've been using it as the seller with a Deutsche Bank business account for a few years now and I never paid any per-transaction fees.

>Direct debit is for utilities, and that's about it.

I think the only party that can draw money directly from my bank account is my bank itself for my mortgage. For everything else, I have e-invoices, where the invoice comes directly to my bank account, so I receive a paper invoice maybe once a year from somewhere. And for e-invoices I can just set auto-accept limits, so any phone bill that is less than 10€ will get automatically accepted and for any phone bills greater than 10€, I need to manually accept it on my bank's website/app.

Actually, I have SEPA Direct Debit disabled on my bank account settings now that I checked it, so I guess I've never used it. I guess my bank just has direct access anyways for mortgage payments.

Interestingly, some of the in-person debit card payments I make from my German bank appear to work internally as direct debits. They appear as "SEPA-ELV-LASTSCHRIFT" on statement. Other card payments are just called "KARTENZAHLUNG". Interestingly, the Lastschrift (direct debit) payments seem reversible on my bank interface, so I could get the money back (presumably invoking letters from the company and debt collectors).

Depends on which card you have used and which scheme was used to process;

In general, "double scheme cards" (MC + Maestro on one card) should offer you the option to choose, while at the POS, which scheme should be used; the thing is, the merchant is not required to offer you this question, and there is a "default scheme" on such cards. This means, in cases the merchant does not ask you, the default scheme is chosen, which is usually the one that brings in more fees for the bank/PSP.

And: Depending on the contract between you and your bank, it maybe that you couldn't revoke the "lastschrift", yes.

I just want to say that I really appreciate your 'insider' comments in this thread. I have always found payments technologies a fascinating and underappreciated topic.

When using the girocard there's two ways the retailer can take the amount. Either instantly, or using Lastschrift. The latter is cheaper, but the retailer doesn't have the guarantee that your account actually has sufficient balance to pay. If I remember correctly, the latter method requires you to sign the receipt.

Yeah, that's where the fun algorithms trying to predict reliability from the set of products you're buying comes in...

It's getting rarer, though. The cost difference is eroding and signing is too slow for supermarket checkout lanes.

The tables have also turned and some retailers now earn money from the banks for supplying their customers with cash (i. e. you pay by card and get an extra x00 in cash).

Actually, in the first case, its not instantly take, instead it is marked as a "abgesicherte laschrift", which is equivalent to enter card+PIN, meaning you can't revoke those. Though, sure you can, but it will end up with nice discussions with your bank :)

Not correct:

SEPA SDD Core + SDD B2B are working crossborder; though you're right that these are not deployed regularly/seldom.

DISCLAIMER: Lead Payment Engineer at an European Challenger Bank, i'm implementing that stuff in the backend, i'm mainly talking to our central bank.

> Direct debit is for utilities, and that's about it.

Here in Germany, bigger online stores offered it as well. I used to use it for Amazon several years ago.

Klarna has been aggressive in trying to push consumers into acknowledging Klarna to pull from their accounts lately. People are used to Klarna here (Sweden), with their "pay on invoice in 14 days for no additional fee" since long, but now they're trying to leverage that into getting customers setup with their bank accounts. Of course they are not going to use this to explicitly steal from customers but still you wonder what can go wrong giving other entities this access..

I would not trust Klarna for anything.

Klarna's use of dark patterns on the web for leading people into debt over choosing other payment methods has been outlawed in Sweden, but I've read that they have continued doing it in other countries.

Quite frankly the practice of requiring bank credentials from consumers should be entirely banned via some laws. It pries on gullible people.

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