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Comment by lispm | Hacker News Reader

I bought mine via the HVV (Hamburg Transport Association) Switch app on an iPhone. I pay using Paypal.

Not familiar with Apple, but I guess they have country limits like Google. In what country is your phone registered?

I'm on Android rather than Apple, but I could install the HVV app on my UK phone and buy tickets using my UK card with no particular difficulty. Maybe other transport associations are more difficult, but I'm not sure why they'd want to make it hard for me to give them money.

Yes, that's a good question why they don't want our (not living in Germany) money.

I think the background is:

* Paypal is not very common/popular in Germany so most local transport agencies don't bother

* with SEPA direct debit which is the common payment in Germany you can easily initiate a chargeback after you have already used the ticket. Of course that's fraud, but if you live abroad, the effort to sue you would be tremendous

According to the Bundesbank, Paypal is the most used online payment type in Germany with almost every second transaction using it.

But the same publication says that only a bit over 50% of the population even own a credit card. And debit cards usable online are still a niche product.

So in Germany, can you pay your Paypal bills any other way than by credit card? Honest question, when I lived in Germany the last time, Paypal did not exist yet.

I assume you are talking about https://www.bundesbank.de/de/publikationen/berichte/studien/...

The usual method is by SEPA direct debit (initiated by Paypal) but you can use a SEPA transfer as well to top up your Paypal balance and pay with that.

Ah, I had no idea that Paypal would do SEPA direct debit . They don't offer it to me. (I don't have a German address, although I would have a German account.)

Many people use Paypal in Germany and one uses it with the typical bank account.

> But the same publication says that only a bit over 50% of the population even own a credit card

Because many cashless transactions are done with girocards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard

Germans are usually very aware of hidden costs and credit cards are usually more expensive per transaction.

Germans also usually are much less in debt than for example many US citizens - for example the University education costs much much less. Young adults have 1400 Euros (plus!) on their giro account and it is typical to pay from that account.

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