| ▲ | rvnx 2 days ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Sounds like we don't live in the same EU. Banks are required to use Strong Customer Authentication, and they consider apps to be safer alternative than SMS. Revolut, N26 and co, are real banks, like any bank in the EU. In many countries, you cannot pay with small coins the bus driver. Shops can refuse cash. https://fullfact.org/online/UK-not-only-europe-country-legal... etc If you want to use the Tesla supercharger network (one of, if not, the largest in Europe, so rather useful), you need the app. https://www.reddit.com/r/Polestar/comments/1hrzidy/do_i_need... In Northern Europe it's very common not to have cash at all or to have it rejected. In Estonia, you can choose to login to services using... your mobile phone OR (if you are lucky and this is supported) a physical ID card reader, so realistically you want to have a mobile phone. Some services don't even have alternative. It's more like a German / Swiss thing to have cash everywhere. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | smakt 2 days ago | parent [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
>Banks are required to use Strong Customer Authentication Not impressed by the pseudotechnical bullshit. The law provides several ways to authenticate. I tell my bank that I don't have a smartphone and they have to send me (at 0 extra cost) a code card: a piece of plastic with numbers on it that no one is ever going to hack. I routinely transfer tens of thousands of Eur between my accounts at real banks within the EU without a problem with my plastic card. When I have used up all the numbers on it they send me another one. I don't know in which EU you live in either. >Revolut, N26 and co, are real banks They are collectively known as "neobanks" for a reason. The official name is "e-money institution". Those are financial casinos, not real banks, operating with non-full banking licenses, peddling all the tech-bro bullshit: trading on memecoins, pulling out of countries when the regulations that real banks have to follow irks them, with a horrible track record of IT security: customer data leaks in the millions, horrible track record of staff abuse, unpaid hours, null customer support: exclusively in-app, where your customer support is "other customers that answer to your in-app post"; the staff shows up once in every 200 messages to write a one-liner and go into hiding again. I do not do business with bullshit "lean" business that operate at cost. Look at their wikipedia pages sometime. >In many countries, you cannot pay with small coins the bus driver Simply not true, not gonna argue this one. >Shops can refuse cash No, they cannot. Many businesses don't want to handle cash and they will make it hard and send you an invoice with a surcharge but they must accept any form of legal tender, no way around it. There are exceptions like you cannot buy a car with a truckload of coins, or give a 5000 Euro note to a taxi cab but those fall under "unreasonable" and it's a very high bar. Also, there is a long tradition of countries delaying implementing EU directives for many years, and then getting it wrong several times. The EU is very lenient, but accepting cash everywhere is EU policy. The fact that some wise-ass members drag their feet for decades is not news and doesn't prove your point. If you push back at the dentist, for example, they will send you an invoice with a surcharge, and you can pay that invoice with cash at your bank. >If you want to use the Tesla supercharger Lol no I don't finance retarded imbeciles - incidentally, all the other charging networks allow you to pay right there without subscription, smartphone or app. It's called "drop-in" payment, and it is there because the law says it must be an option. >In Northern Europe... No, you confuse the EU policy of allowing cash in transactions with money-laundering directives. Those prevent you from buying a house in cash, but you can buy anything, say, under 10000 Eur or equivalent NOK/SEK | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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