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Comment by roncohen | Hacker News Reader

I believe the trend in the nordics is largely driven by the Dankort and similar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dankort) which is a debit card that is free to get and use for consumers. Merchants pay an annual fee depending on their transaction volume and they are not allowed to pass the cost on to the consumer. It doubles as a VISA which is neat when we go abroad.

An interesting data point is that every single taxis here is happy to take your credit card. I was surprised to learn that I was unable to pay with my VISA in many taxis in the UK and USA.

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"they are not allowed to pass the cost on to the consumer"

Haha, that's funny. The merchant's whole income is from the customer, there's no way not to pass it on to the customer, just to conceal better the fact that they're passing it on.

Most merchants are OK with the Dankort. Handling cash (in a near cashless society, mind you) is not free either. Bottom line is: if i can't pay with my Dankort, I'll go somewhere else.

obviously they pass the cost on to the customer, but not directly. they can't charge one price for cash and a different price for card.

Which means they have to pass the cost on to both kinds of customer.

If you're a business customer in a bank, and you bring in cash on a regular basis, the bank will actually charge you a percentage for doing that.

From a discussion I had with a merchant, that rate is quite high, especially for small change. The value he gave for small change was 7%. That's a lot more expensive than the worst credit card charges, except for really small amounts.

In Norway, the equivalent debit card payment system is called BankAxept.

An important factor in the adoption of these cards is the low transaction costs for both the consumer and the merchant.

Unlike credit cards, merchants arent't charged a percentage of the total transaction amount.

Does Dankort use nfc/paypass so that you can just tap your card, or do you need to enter a pin each time?

It's a card with a "chip" and a pin. No NFC/paypass and no plans to change that as far as i know :(

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