• Ideas Cards Payments

  • feature request: bypass DCC - encode cards in foreign currencies

ZeroFX is a great thing. However, MasterCard's DCC (Dynamic Currency Conversion) function makes paying abroad difficult. This will probably not be switched off, but it would already help to be able to code cards in currencies other than EUR. Perhaps only with the virtual cards, but the physical cards can also be reconfigured. That would be a great feature and another unique selling point of bunq.

Background: In a very, very large number of non-euro countries, many terminals have been offering to pay in euros for some time instead of directly in the local currency (with a surcharge of around 3%). In the meantime, this also works with NFC payments. The question alone is annoying. But even if MasterCard claims otherwise, there are many retailers who do not ask at all or who, contrary to my wishes, settle via DCC because they receive bonuses themselves. But if I could change the card to local currency before a trip, DCC would no longer be offered.

    That would be an absolute awesome feature. And I think Transferwise‘s card works kinda like that, if I‘m not mistaken (haven‘t tried this myself, maybe someone knows?). It would also eliminate the conversion rate changing after the fact💱

    But, this probably requires bunq actually exchanging the currencies, as Mastercard would no longer offer to do that for them. But maybe they can find a way to make it work 😉

      DCC is based on BIN number ranges.

        @Frank-Maroon-Eagle#139752 As far as I know, Transferwise also issues cards based on a customer’s legal residency, but it’s a while that I looked into this.

        I am not sure if Mastercard would like the idea that Bunq would issue numbers based on a customer’s vacation destination. I am not aware of any issuer that allows this flexibility, and it’s most likely due to contractual and regulatory restraints. Without a partner bank or a branch in the US, Bunq won’t be able to issue cards that are USD denominated, I believe.

          @Jakob#139738
          Visa and MasterCard don’t like DCC. Because they make money with providing their own rates to issuers. DCC prevents this. Visa tried to shut down DCC in Australia a while ago and lost that battle in court.

          DCC is not related to how a bank/issuer handles fx transactions.

          The only way to reliably avoid DCC is to block transactions that happen not to be in the local currency of a given destination.

          In principle, MC does not allow DCC for prepaid travel cards where a user bought currencies beforehand, but I am not aware that cards like TW or Revolut that allow this but also exchange on the fly are affected by this new rule. Mastercard neither confirms nor denies this on social media. Questions about this tend to be ignored.

            @Kilian-Lime-Panda#139709 You seem to imply that DCC is a service offered by Mastercard. But it’s actually 3rd party payment processors that offer this. It happens before a payment is authorized via Mastercard’s network. The payment processor guesses a card’s currency based on BIN databases and then applies/offers fx conversion before a payment is presented to MC and the issuing bank.

              8 days later

              MasterCard refers to DCC as "POI Currency Conversion". Section 3.8 of the MasterCard Transaction Processing Rules (PDF page 90: https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/mccom/global/documents/transaction-processing-rules.pdf) addresses this:

              "POI currency conversion must not be offered on a Contactless Transaction that is equal to or less than the applicable CVM limit"

              If you enable Apple Pay or Google Pay, the transaction is processed using the Consumer Device Cardholder Verification Method, or CDCVM. Since CDCVM transactions have an infinite limit (in other words, no matter how large the transaction amount, a PIN is never required for Apple Pay or Google Pay), this means that DCC is forbidden on transactions using Apple Pay or Google Pay.

              I have encountered exactly one large chain in Spain which prohibits Apple Pay with non-Spanish cards specifically because they want to offer DCC, so instead they break the payment flow and make you use a plastic card (for which DCC is not prohibited). Dirty trick. They no longer get my business (and I reported them to the Bank of Spain, MasterCard Europe, Visa Europe, and the European Commission).

                @Alexander-Yellow-Dragon-509887140#140636 only non-spanish cards? that seems oddly specific, considering all of europe now has apple pay and the currency is the same...

                  @DaveFlash#140638 Correct, because the chain of shops is in Spain and Spanish cards wouldn't qualify for DCC. They permitted Apple Pay with Spanish cards, but not non-Spanish cards. This is ridiculous, but it's how it was. I haven't tested it again to see if they have come into compliance.

                  When I used my plastic card, it thought for a while and then proceeded without DCC (because it is indeed a Euro-denominated card). LOL.

                    @The-Power-Of-Dreams#140639 yeah, because it should work with bunq cards I think

                      Volgens mij kan dat wat TS wil bij Revolut.
                      Als je daar een $ account aanmaakt en een betaling in $ wordt de betaling afgeboekt op het tegoed aan $.

                        @Frank-Maroon-Eagle#139759 The payment processor guesses a card’s currency based on BIN databases and then applies/offers fx conversion before a payment is presented to MC and the issuing bank

                        I doubt that it's based on BIN ranges (in-store/on-premises).
                        I think they rather read out the currency code is stored on the card.

                        @DaveFlash#140638 considering all of europe now has apple pay and the currency is the same...

                        ...except in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, the United Kingdom. ;)

                          2 months later

                          Hey Tim,
                          Why did you remove the Features tag?
                          It's even in the title, this is a feature request. If bunq decided that they don't want to consider this feature, that's fine, they should just comment so and close this feature request, but until then, this is clearly a feature request and should be tagged accordingly.

                            @Frank-Maroon-Eagle#139757 Like the idea of optional declining of transactions in non-local currencies

                              @Mihai-andrei-Golden-Frog#147991 the feature tag is used for feature discussions (existing features). The "ideas" tag is used for feature requests and this one is still present on the topic. 👍🙂 all good 👍😁

                                4 years later

                                You can link your existing cards to one of your foreign currency accounts, and then withdraw money in the local currency without DCC at an ATM. However, some banks and terminals, keep using EURO acounts. even if the card is linked to a local currency account. In Turkey QNB Finansbank does this. I had linked my card to a local currency TL account, still the money was deducted from my EURO accounts. Randomly selected. The bank printed a receipt, stating I had given permission to use DCC, which wasn't the case. The linked foreign currency account, should solely decide which currency should be used!

                                No separate dedicated cards for every possible currency!

                                So please let let us decide if we want to use DCC, I want bunq to do the conversion for me, not the foreign bank!
                                Please implement this feature!

                                Thank you very much in advance!

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