Maciej Some stores in Germany have card terminals that are quite old and a certificate expired. Now they cannot do real card transactions anymore. So in part they retort do doing so-called „ELV“: basically reading the IBAN from the magnet stripe of the card and then just issuing a regular direct debit. With all the down-sides that come with this (for example receipts that are actually 1 meter long because you have to sign a friggin endless contract at checkout😹).
But what is that you say? Why should the IBAN be stored on the magnet stripe?! Indeed: it isn‘t! At least not for regular international credit and debit cards. However when it comes to the domestic German girocard, this information is actually saved on the card and can be read by merchants.
That‘s why as long as these stores have broken payment terminals, bunq cards will probably not work. Thanks Verifone 😟
