• Anonymous or prepaid bank card

Hi all,

I have been playing and tinkering with this idea: how come we don't have anonymous or prepaid bank cards in the Netherlands?

Strictly personal speaking: I trust bunq - and up to a certain degree, I have the government with my personal details like my full name, bank account, etc. I like the merits of being able to pay with plastic, rather than having pocket cash.

Though, this comes with privacy invasion. Retailers are able to grab, store and analyze my details in bulk. There are prepaid and virtual credit cards available, yet, nothing alike with normal banking cards.

There are two main challenges to overcome:

• Fraud - with anonymous cards, fraud can be committed more easily.
• Govern jurisdiction - the EU law states that each account must have a legal owner.

In my opinion, these two challenges can be mitigated. By allowing outgoing payments and transactions 'only', fraud can be overcome. The card could be topped up with iDeal transactions, like a normal bunq account. Thus, only bunq and the government have access to the real and validated owner of the account.

The second, if fraud plays no factor, the issueing institution, like bunq, can be the legal owner of the anonymous/prepaid/disposable account.

Thus, this merely requires sharing personal details merely with the governing body and the bank (bunq), rather than each and every party you have a transaction with.

I am very curious whether there is more interest in this and whether a workaround like this would be doable / lawful.

Kind regards,
H3artbl33d

    I trust bunq to not do anything with my payment details.

      ICS does have pre-paid cards

        @Arthur#44660 That would be a Mastercard/Visa and explicitly not what I meant with my idea 😉

          @h3artbl33d#44664 Depends on your defenition of bank card... And you didn't specify 😋
          Maestro, VPay, Bancontact, Girocard, Mastercard Debit, VISA, etc

            @Arthur#44672 How could I properly refer to the non-Mastercard? Maestro?

              Maestro or VPay, these are the most common in the Netherlands

                What kind of information is normally shared?

                  So, similar to the https://privacy.com/ service, but also for Maestro?

                  (note: not available outside the USA)
                  Privacy has virtual Visa card numbers for either single usage (card number self-destructs 2 minutes after use) or recurring usage, and you can set a limit similar to how we set a limit per direct debit in bunq.
                  They use a connection with the American banks, similar to a typical European direct debit, to pay for any virtual card transaction in about 1 to 3 business days.
                  What they also allow you to do is to use any fake information in the "billing information" for any purchase, and Privacy will return that everything is correct.

                    @Dana#44707 That would be awesome. I wish something like privacy.com would exist in Europe

                      @h3artbl33d#44635
                      You do NOT want banks to be "legal owner" of the prepaid account. Your funds would be lost if the bank becomes insolvent.
                      And then, anonymous cards aren't legal and never will be (at least not in a jurisdiction that you'd want to live in).

                      Your suggestion for a card that can be topped up via iDeal sounds no different than available prepaid cards? And there isn't much of a difference between iDeal and Standard SEPA transfer, as there will always be third parties involved in the transfer clearing process (whether it'd be SEPA clearers or Currence as operating iDEAL) that could possibly track your transfer, won't they? Also, merchants would still be able to track you by card number.

                      So I'm not hundred percent sure what you mean by "normal banking cards". Do you just mean Non-VISA/non-Mastercard cards? (As we know, MC/VISA aren't well accepted at NL retail merchants).

                      If so, isn't
                      https://pay2d.nl/
                      what you're looking for?

                      You buy a physical card anonymously from a retail outlet, with a 150€ limit. Then upgrade to Plus or Pro, by disclosing (and proving) your identity to the card issuer. Who are, by the way, domiciled abroad in the UK), and top up, before paying at merchant terminals. Your name still isn't stored on the card. Virtually the same product with slightly different pricing is also available in Germany (as "mycard2go"), also by Wirecard, though, in this case their german entity. Also can be registered as a foreign resident.

                      EDIT: Almost forgot: both pay2d and mycard2go are dual VISA/V PAY cards, so you'd still be able to pay using V PAY at merchants that have chosen not to accept VISA for cost reasons, as is (AFAIK), often the case in the Netherlands.

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