Originally Posted by
YuropFlyer
Guys, how is it going with PayWave/the technology you just have to wave the card at the reader (or whatever they call it for MC/Visa) in your countries?
I've experienced PayWave a few times in SIN now (with a foreign card, despite them telling me that it only works for local cards
) and given SIN, I was never DCC'ed, but I assume that it should be the same everywhere that PayWave is used, as DCC obviously isn't compatible with PayWave (unless the criminals banksters find a way somehow, I guess..) so it should be save that way? Also never seen a foreigner (using a non CHF card) that used PayWave at the airport getting scammed so far.
If one buys stuff for 300€, it's quite easy to fight over the scam (as it's worth 20€ or so) - but if it's 10€, sometimes even myself will find it troublesome to fight over the principle. So if PayWave is DCC free, this would be a great thing as I expect the technology to be used at 90%+ of the terminals rather soon?
Obviously MC/Visa are pushing it, because it gets them even the small transactions, that most people used cash to pay.
Originally Posted by
YuropFlyer
So, let's go 100% contactless then
How is contactless rolled out in your area? In SIN, it's very popular, with (I would say) 80%+ of the stores where you pay at checkout using it (obviously, dine-in restaurants where they bring the bill to your table etc. don't) - both supermarkets and (fast) food restaurants.
In Switzerland, both big supermarkt chains (Migros, Coop) have moved to contactless terminals in the last year, as well as the nationwide Kiosk chain that is controlling like 95%+ of the market. Fast food outlets have moved to it as well (not visiting much those kind of outlets, so a bit limited experience)
Germany has less credit card acceptance overall, and seems to be slower at moving towards contactless.
Malaysia, I've not seen much contactless in my last visits there this year.
How about other, "DCC prone" places, like all variations of China, Thailand, UK, Ireland, Spain, how is contactless spreading there?
Also, how is the contactless acceptance with "foreign" cards going? I've seen cases in which non-local cards wouldn't work on the contactless reader, but would work fine when chipped into (with and without DCC attempt) - and not sure if MC/VISA prefer that people generally use credit cards paying contactless, or if they would prefer DCC to always be applied, but maybe some less payments going on with CC's in general due to contactless not working
Sorry for missing the negative point (underline added). I was really responding to the pros in the other post (the whole bit about popularity which I highlighted in bold).
In my experience I don't think the small transaction, local-heavy type merchants get priority targeting by DCC processors (e.g. Tesco, Costa). It's the tourist-heavy big ticket locations that are targeted e.g. Harrods, DFS, hotels and car rental.
Even if I encounter it in smaller merchants in more DCC-saturated cities like Sydney and Hong Kong, I'll probably cash it if my cash rate is better than the DCC rate. In those places I can well afford to cash out the scammers - they're probably doing it to encourage cash use anyway.