To be fair cheques are also popular in the US. Until recently I had to pay my rent with Cheque. I live in an apartment complex in San Francisco.

Almost certainly because your landlord is in their 70s and doesn't trust all this newfangled computers stuff.

I have one of those.

My German bank doesn't even offer cheque books anymore.

Cash is King is Germany.

It's rather awkward if you come from a country with heavy card use. It's just weird to carry a few hundred euros in cash in your pocket these days.

You need cash in Germany, but not a lot of it – everything big takes a debit card. That does not help strangers with their credit cards though, so they get the wrong impression.

I pay cash at the bakery, to get a coffee, to load my canteen card at work, and to buy bus tickets in small cities at the driver, that's it. Buying used cars is usually done by cash (even 10k and more). Almost everywhere else you can pay with a German debit card (Girocard).

But credit Cards are coming fast to Germany. Since a few weeks even the cheapest supermarkets, including Aldi, started to accept MasterCard and Visa.

>The problem with credit cards in Germany is that they don't use 2FA. It's the same old signature system. Even online transactions don't require 2FA.

This is not generally true. My credit cards use PIN when the terminal supports it and only fall back to signature when used with older terminals.

I've never heard of online transactions with 1FA auth, most banks use a combination of user login and challenge-response TAN lists or mobile TANs. Special hardware devices that require you to insert your debit card, enter a PIN and have the device read a code directly from the computer monitor using photo diodes are quite common, too.

The problem with credit cards in Germany is that they don't use 2FA. It's the same old signature system. Even online transactions don't require 2FA.

It depends on where you get it. Some banks (most notoriously almost all Sparkasse) only give out chip+signature cards. But chip+PIN cards are common as well, just like "Verified by Visa" and such systems.

> Some banks (most notoriously almost all Sparkasse)

Coincidentally, I have a Sparkasse credit card without chip+pin. Regardless, there shouldn't be a choice for 2FA.

That really depends on the specific bank. I've got a debit card from a Sparkasse with Chip+PIN and 2FA for online transaction for quite a few years.

The discussion was on "credit" not "debit" card. The "debit" card for Sparkasse does have 2FA but the TAN based 2FA is atrocious. You need to carry a separate device, match diodes to your screen code OR insert at least 4 sets of numbers before you get your 2FA code. Yes, I know you could use SMS but it isn't the best idea particularly if you are traveling.

Finally, is the EC Maestro card from Sparkaasse really a debit card? A lot of online merchants would not accept it.

Thanks for correcting, not being there too often currently things like credit cards arriving there I miss. That was unthinkable three years ago.

I was surprised, too. Remember that they introduced cashless payments just ten years ago.

I think it has much to do with the EU capping interbank fees.

I think the real reason is that Germany had working debit cards for a very long time already, there was simply no need for credit cards. Every bank and store was accepting every banks's debit card. Since the big international credit card companies cream of a couple of percent when you pay with a credit card, but German debit cards don't, retail was really reluctant for a long time to accept credit cards.

Yes it is quite strange (and annoying) but you get used to it.

Exactly. And virements (bank transfer) are really strange, at least with my bank (wait 24 hours to send money, I never saw that before). For me, that fits well into the image of a country that is not at all modern.

But: That at least changed. They are still popular like you said, but by now you can get by without them (I for example have none), many stores do not accept them anymore. That is new.

What to say about the US (and Canada) where cheap transfers between bank accounts don't exist (at least from individual to individual)

Yes, where it exists it's rarely instantaneous across banks

There was a good Planet Money episode on this phenomenon[1].

The short version is that, apparently unlike most European countries, there are thousands and thousands of banks in the U.S., each operating under both Federal and one of 50 different state regulatory regimes.

It's also the case that the U.S. was one of the first countries to move to electronic interbank check clearing and funds transfer, and the resulting clearinghouse is a big hairy legacy system that they're not particularly inclined or motivated to mess with.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episo...

Well, it sounds really impolite saying that. But you can probably guess what I think of it: I think it is really strange that a nation as modern as the USA is in that regard 100 years behind basically all other industrial nations.

Though instantaneous they are also not in Germany, can take some time to arrive.

Sure they do, in Canada anyway. Interac email transfer is quick and painless, although it costs a dollar or so.

Not really, because the reference is their email (and the receiver has to 'receive' it), no?

I'm talking about giving someone your bank/branch/acc number and send them a payment.