Hacker News Reader

Comment by preya2k | Hacker News Reader

Swiss/Danish/Finnish Mobile Payment alternatives like TWINT and MobilePay.

Also: physical lockers with PIN/Code instead of keys (in basically every country aside from Germany). It's just completely bonkers to me, that German train station lockers still use physical Keys EVERYWHERE.

View on HN

I use mobilepay when paying online. Its quicker than the credit card.

But the service is owned by the greedy banks so it will probably end with me abandoning it because it will get too expensive when they have enough users.

I like the keys. The key has the locker number on it, so you don't have to remember anything. And there's no way to screw up setting the pin because of a language barrier, since there are basically no instructions needed for key lockers. FWIW the key lockers are more common in Japan as well.

I agree with you with regard to convenience, but what about security? For the application of railway station lockers, one can assume that they will be under CCTV or other monitoring. I am no expert in locks, but presumably an electronic lock, whilst perhaps less secure overall, is harder to break without obviously looking like one is tampering with it. This is in contrast to a conventional barrel lock, which can be picked with tools that look enough like keys not to arouse suspicion from a distance.

There’s probably an economy around those keys - people who lose them have to pay an (overinflated) deposit, some company is overcharging the locker owner for key replacements, etc. At every layer someone skims a bit of money, so nobody in power of changing the system is actually incentivized to do so.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com