Re:Why Germans pay cash for almost everything
by kuschku on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:06PM
(#14959901)
Not really.
Until 2016, the costs were 30€/mo+0.125% for EC, 160€/mo+4% for VISA and MasterCard, 160€/mo+7.5% for AMEX in Germany.
Most German merchants run on margins below 1-2%. Good luck paying 7.5% transaction fee on a margin of 1%.
This is why EC was far more widely accepted, although even that was too expensive for small places, such as farmers selling stuff on the market.
Re:Why Germans pay cash for almost everything
by bluGill on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @01:47PM
(#14960429)
Nobody to my knowledge has every measures the costs of cash, it is just something they accept. With credit cards it is easy to measure because you get a number, but with cash it is not, you have to calculate too many different parameters and figure out what applies where.
Re:Why Germans pay cash for almost everything
by germanier on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @02:55PM
(#14961245)
I'm pretty sure every single German supermarket chain measures that, it's just a requirement to operate at those margins. The Edeka cooperative published in 2012 that their all-in cash handling cost is 0.14%. The 2013 Steinbeis Cost of Cash study[0] estimated a much higher number of 2.7% for merchants. The truth is probably somewhere in between.
Such studies have also been used to arrive at the EU interchange cap.
[0]: http://www.steinbeis-research.de/images/pdf-documents/CFP_Co...
Re:Why Germans pay cash for almost everything
by jimmaswell on Tuesday August 08, 2017 @05:21PM
(#14962835)
The cash is counted by machines at banks, which I'm pretty sure almost never make an error doing so, and I'm sure it's less often than human counting error.
For cash you have to count and recount that cash at the end of the shift, and then the bank counts are recounts it again. This is a significant amount of labor. By contrast with a card once the initial transaction is done everything is put into the computer electronically and no human has to look at it again.
Also cash is subject to theft. In some locations this risk is a significant part of the transaction costs - not just the cash, risk of death in the robbery. Electronic payments are subject to loss, but generally there is a trail to chase when it happens, and the possibility of death is much less.