but what people in Germany really use is cash or a girocard (card attached to your regular checking account).
but yes, european reliance on america is horrible, usually in addition to the girocard functionality on your card, which is usable only in germany, there’s also some mastercard or visa functionality in the card, which allows you to use the card at the very least in the SEPA area (single euro payments area, 41 countries are members, visa vpay or mastercard maestro) and in cases where you get the full mastercard or visa on top of your girocard you can of course pay worldwide with a bunch of asterisks.
that means cross-country payments with your card are locked behind america, which is why wero (europe’s new digital payment system for use in the SEPA) makes so much sense.
Got my new licence plate online a couple weeks ago, here in Germany. Two options to pay: PayPal or MasterCard. This is ridiculous.
Why tf is a government entity using paypal??
Because people use PayPal and the government entity is trying to be helpful.
but what people in Germany really use is cash or a girocard (card attached to your regular checking account).
but yes, european reliance on america is horrible, usually in addition to the girocard functionality on your card, which is usable only in germany, there’s also some mastercard or visa functionality in the card, which allows you to use the card at the very least in the SEPA area (single euro payments area, 41 countries are members, visa vpay or mastercard maestro) and in cases where you get the full mastercard or visa on top of your girocard you can of course pay worldwide with a bunch of asterisks.
that means cross-country payments with your card are locked behind america, which is why wero (europe’s new digital payment system for use in the SEPA) makes so much sense.
I wrote them an email asking about Wero and they replied that they’ll launch it soon. So let’s stay hopeful.