• Major update: bunq cards

Hi Everyone,

I've some really exciting news to share with you today. Creating Bank of the Free has resulted in many world-first features. While our user numbers continued to grow, we inevitably stumbled upon some nuisances with our bunq cards.

Over the last few months we have been working hard on expanding the acceptance of our cards. I'm excited to say that we believe all inconveniences have been ironed out!

Offline pin
A few countries in the world still have some card terminals that are not connected to the internet. We therefore implemented software with our bunq cards to support these offline terminals! You can now have a truly global card experience, wherever your holidays may take you.

3D secure
We implemented a totally new, super easy approach to 3D secure! It however took some merchants a little bit of time to add us to their software. We’re happy to report that the last couple of major web shops have now confirmed that 3D secure is fully functional!

Simplified limits
bunq has a strong coders background. Being in that mindset when we started, we overengineered our card limits. Thanks to your feedback we have come to see this and we have been working behind the scenes to greatly simplify our limits. Check out the new limits here.

Celebrate!
We'd love to celebrate this major update with you. Our latest version of the app lets you invite one person to explore all Premium features. That special someone can have a set of Maestro and Mastercards for free (with a monthly spending limit of €100).

Cheers!

Ali

    Cool! Especially the invite a friend feature.... Do we get the new cards automagically or do we need to request them? (not that I already need offline pin, but still)

      @Ali#37155 Hi Ali, maybe you overengineered the card limits in the begining, but I am afraid you over simplified it yet. There is no possibility for a differentiation between "contactless" or "online payments" and I can not find the whitelist anymore. Does the magic now happens behind the curtain, as with the old banks?

        @Ali How do i activate offline PIN om my cards? Maybe only insert the card in an online terminal?
        And is there a limit for offline payments?

          @Ali#37155 Offline pin
          A few countries in the world still have some card terminals that are not connected to the internet. We therefore implemented software with our bunq cards to support these offline terminals! You can now have a truly global card experience, wherever your holidays may take you.

          Nice! How do cards get this “software”? Or do we need new cards?

            @Ali#37155 Hi Ali !

            The offline pin is a great news ! Does it mean that we can make payments with offline terminals? How does it work ?

            Concerning the card limits, I think you over simplified this time. At least, we have to be able to disable contactless, online payments and set a withdrawal limit...

              Hi all, glad to see you're all excited about offline PIN, we think it's a great feature that will enable you to really use bunq worldwide!!

              To enable this, all you need to do is make a contact payment, i.e. insert your card into a terminal that's online and we will take care of the rest 💪 Once this is done you will be free to make offline payments! Since the payments will be offline, you will not receive an event in the app immediately, as only your card knows that the payment has been made 💳 This information will come through later when the terminal comes online.

              Please be aware that this currently only works with Mastercard Debit cards as it's not supported on Maestro. Also, because the terminal is offline, the PIN validation only happens on the card itself so your secondary PIN will not work with offline terminals.

              We hope you enjoy this new feature 🌈

                Thanks for offline payments and bringing back per-card limits! 😘

                Where do I now manage the allowed merchants? I only see the settings on the transaction, but the list appears to be gone?

                  @Neihana#37174 Awesome! Is there an offline limit?

                    @Neihana#37174 What happens if the daily limit is met when the offline payment is being processed?

                      Hey @Adri#37179, there is indeed a limit on offline payments. You can spend up to €250 offline, and this is reset when we receive confirmation of the offline payment, which can vary in time depending on when the information gets back to us.

                        @Neihana#37174 Van welke IBAN wordt een offline transactie afgeboekt?
                        Het IBAN waar de kaart aan gekoppeld is op het moment van betalen, of het IBAN waar de kaart aan gekoppeld is op het moment dat bunq de transactie verwerkt?

                          Not good... I always have contactless payments disabled, but now I can't change it. Is it still disabled? How am I supposed to know? If it has been enabled because I updated the app, will bunq reimburse fraudulent contactless payments in case of theft? You normally don't.

                          Let's be clear: this is no improvement... most of us want to be able to change every setting on our card or connect. Removing limited access to connected accounts and now basic settings like disabling NFC is just stupid. Don't think and decide for us. even if 10 people want to connect an account with limited access or change certain card settings, they should be able to...

                            Hey @Xander#37178, with the new simplified limits, we have also removed whitelisting, so your new single limit controls all the payments you make. We will be updating the transaction settings to remove the ability to whitelist merchants, keep an eye out for this 👀

                            Offline payments will not count towards your daily limit as we don't actually know that the payment has been made until we receive the payment from the offline terminal. Once we do receive this information, it will be taken into account for your limit 👍

                              Thanks for the update and good to see you guys are keeping buys with the experience.

                              Few questions about the invite for a special someone;
                              - Do they get to use premium features free forever or just for a limited time?
                              - Can they only use the cards to spend up to €100 per month combined?
                              - Is there a limit on their bank accounts as well?
                              - Can that special someone be somebody with a free (non premium) bunq account?

                              Love to here from you guys! Cheers!

                                @Ali#37155 Hello Ali,

                                I'm disappointed with the change "Simplified limits".
                                We could manage the deactivations of the magstripe, contactess, online with CVC, online without CVC, ATM, ...
                                I kept the limit by card, not the overall limit.

                                You have removed all security cards now. We can no longer manage ATM disabling, Magstripe, ...
                                This is a very bad thing, because the customers who wanted could keep everything active. And the others like us, we could manage each limit (ATM, Magstripe, ...).

                                It was a security for us, but also for you. For example, if I blocked Magstripe and ATM, a copied card could not debit my account. Now the fraudsters can, and it is bunq who will have to pay because it will have to return the money to the customer.

                                I know that on the documentation API you had changed decision and you had delivered the documentation.
                                I do not know if you will agree to put the old limits on the cards.

                                We lose security now, and bunq is exposed to more risks.
                                It would have been enough to leave a simplified global limit for customers who do not want an individual limit. And those who want an individual limit we kept ATM, Magstripe, Contacless, CNP with CVC, CNP without CVC, ...

                                With this new decision, we have less limitation than a conventional bank.
                                My bank allows to choose country by country and the authorized functions (ATM, CNP, ...).

                                I do not understand the decision of bunq.
                                Instead of maintaining security, you put less security and more risk.

                                I do not think the customers were "stupid" and did not know how to use the limits.

                                It's very strange. Normally we elevate the clients upwards. We educate customers to more service and security. There you shoot everyone down. :-(

                                Regards,
                                Damien

                                  When attempting to invite someone to use bunq, the only option appears to be giving access to your contacts (am on iOS). I would prefer not to do this and instead be able to generate a personal invitation link.

                                  I must also echo one other concern in this thread, namely that card limits are now a lot less granular. I personally liked that I could set limits for contactless payments, online payments, “sketchy” payments, and the like. It’s concerning that such a useful feature was removed, in my opinion.