ATMs are becoming a shit-show in Europe. Can cash back save us? Info is sparse as fuck.
ATMs are becoming a shit-show in Europe. Can cash back save us? Info is sparse as fuck.
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11819804
The trend in western Europe is banks are pulling out of the ATM business and joining consortiums. Then those consortiums deploy much fewer ATMs than the banks had. And they monopolise. If one or two ATM brands reject your card, you may be fucked if it’s a small city, as I recently experienced.
ATM alternatives are becoming increasingly essential due to ATM enshitification & sparcity. Some shops give cash back, where you have more money pulled from your bank and the cashier gives you cash from the register. The US has always been on-the-ball with cash back, even though the ATMs in the US are not the shit-show that we see in Europe lately.
So it’s easy to find cash back options in the US because there are several compiled lists showing various stores and limits, like this. Some shops have a fee and some not and the range of limits vary wildly. But at least there are published options.
I’m struggling to find information like that in Europe. In part this is because “cash back” is an overloaded term that also means rebate deals (like discounts of ~1—5%), so search results are polluted. It’s bizarre there is so little info about this. So many people have become cashless that hardly anyone even notices the shit show that ATMs have become. Hence low demand for info on cash back options.
Cash back can be interesting for foreign card holders in Europe because they avoid ATM fees. Discovercard/Diner’s Club seems to guarantee no cash back fee and at the same time no currency exchange markup. But the data on cashback in Europe is sparse and inconsistent from one country to the next.
- Norway shops offering cash back refuse non-Norwegian cards.
- UK stores require no purchase and have no fee, but they also discriminate against non-local bank cards.
- Denmark: local cards only, credit cards refused.
- Spain: no cash back service (but that article is 10 yrs old).
- Netherlands: rumour is that Albert Heijn, SPAR, and Smullers have cash back. (SPAR advertises cashback on their UK site with a locator because apparently only some locations offer it. Yet they wholly conceal this option from their Dutch website)
- Belgium: Aldi has it. But if you boycott Israel then you boycott Aldi North (all Belgian Aldis are Aldi North)
Mastercard has a “cashback store locator” on their US website. And apparently that db is only populated with US stores. Which is a bit shitty because MC is global and they should have that information.
I’m not getting why shops are non-transparent about this. Presumably they offer cash back potentially fee-free because they profit from whatever you’re buying. It would work on me.. if I have some confidence that I can get €200 cash back at a store, that store is sure to get my business.
Anyway, please feel free to use this thread to crowdsource cashback info.
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For the Netherlands, all ATM withdrawals are free, and all debit transactions in stores are free. This applies to any combination of cards and banks. I don't really see the point in trying to avoid either?
Getting cashback in stores is pretty uncommon because very few people will ever use it, since the alternatives are free and convenient.
Is this related to your previous post where you complained that your card kept getting rejected (resulting in your blaming the machine instead of your card/bank)?
For the Netherlands, all ATM withdrawals are free,
Try a non-EU card. Dutch ATMs charge a transaction fee of ~€4 to non-EU cards.
and all debit transactions in stores are free
Acceptance can be an issue. US banks have very favorable card features for the consumers, like chargebacks. If a consumer has some kind of complaint regarding a purchase, banks will claw back the money from the merchant until the merchant provides proof that counters the consumer’s claim, and I believe the mediation is all in English. They make it very easy for the consumer.. the card holder simply calls their bank and says “dispute charge X” and briefly states the reason. Then the merchant faces a paperwork burden over a potentially small amount of money and often don’t bother, which means they lose by default. US consumers take advantage of this option enough that merchants in the EU sometimes refuse US cards because of the risk of chargebacks. It violates the Visa merchant agreement to treat foreign cards differently but it’s not enforced by Visa/MC. I’m not sure if any Dutch merchants discriminate against foreign cards but it’s certainly a thing in Europe.
USians also have Discovercard (Diner’s Club). This card has very low acceptance in European shops, but ATMs often accept Discovercard.
Is this related to your previous post where you complained that your card kept getting rejected (resulting in your blaming the machine instead of your card/bank)?
Indeed. The ATM machines themselves are persnickety and faulty when there is no problem on the bank’s side. The ATMs output bogus messaging. And because choice of ATM operator is diminishing, ATMs are a non-starter in some situations. They cannot be relied on.
Try a non-EU card. Dutch ATMs charge a transaction fee of ~€4 to non-EU cards.
True, but this is a minority of transactions, so it doesn't really influence the culture by much. No store is going to leverage the "non-eu-expat-without-bsn-cash-only" segment of the market.
USians also have Discovercard (Diner’s Club). This card has very low acceptance in European shops, but ATMs often accept Discovercard.
Problems like this are pretty much universal though, and they've gotten much better in the last decades, not worse. It's just that we've gotten less accepting of things not working flawlessly. Getting money in the US is a similar crapshoot, even with Visa/Mastercard, and most of Asia is worse.
The thing is, the majority of transactions are by card, so obviously services will lean that way. Annoying for tourists, maybe, but getting euros isn't a huge problem for a short stay.
True, but this is a minority of transactions, so it doesn’t really influence the culture by much. No store is going to leverage the “non-eu-expat-without-bsn-cash-only” segment of the market.
ATM numbers have really dropped in Belgium and the backlash is that there is now pressure (and possibly plans) to bring the ATMs back in order to accommodate tourists. At the same time there is a somewhat global movement to try to steer tourists away from the tourist hotspots and toward smaller cities. But if they want to get their eye on the ball, they need to fix the ATM situation which neglects tourists in the small cities.
Cards are not as versatile as you make them out to be. EU cards used inside the EU, sure, but in the US and UK you have several complex factors:
- most banks burn you on the exchange rate and some rare ones have zero markup, so travelers are limited in which of their cards they use
- Mastercard/maestro is the most popular in Europe but its popularity is lower in the US and perhaps UK as well
- proper credit cards are very common in the US, most commonly Visa, but merchants sometimes refuse them because of the chargeback risk. Credit cards can be used to get a “cash advance” from the ATM, but the fees for that are often very high. There are lots of tricks to reduce the fees a bit but most consumers are unaware of them. So consumers are often pushed to use a debit card at the ATM.
- Discover has no foreign exchange costs which makes it very interesting for tourists but it’s blown by low acceptance.
Well, I could go on but the main issue is eurozone cards work trivially in the EU, but there is much more financial instrument diversity outside Europe that’s not well accommodated in Europe. Outsiders can’t just pick any card out and expect it to work Europe and to not get burnt on overhead. If a shop were to accept Diner’s Club and also offer fee-free cashback, it would lock-in business from US tourists and expats.
When you take away options and enshitify the ATMs, it increases complexity on an already complex situation. I may not go back to a small town in Netherlands knowing that I could again be trapped with an ATM monopoly that mistreats my cards. We need more options like shops that offer cashback.
Well, I could go on but the main issue is eurozone cards work trivially in the EU, but there is much more financial instrument diversity outside Europe that’s not well accommodated in Europe. Outsiders can’t just pick any card out and expect it to work Europe and to not get burnt on overhead.
For tourists, this might mean they spend 10 or 20 bucks getting euros over their holiday. They'd pay the same exchanging cash at home, so they tend not to care (they just spent 100 times flying across an ocean or continent, I know it's not something I bother with when I go on vacation).
If this is a structural issue, I don't understand the cause of it when there's a simple solution: Get a Dutch bank account, and fix your EU-wide problems. It takes all of 10 minutes
I may not go back to a small town in Netherlands knowing that I could again be trapped with an ATM monopoly that mistreats my cards. We need more options like shops that offer cashback.
Well no, you need it, but you're very much a minor use case, which makes it very unlikely to happen. I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, just that it's very unlikely. The Dutch Geldmaat is already a mandated thing, banks would have even fewer ATMs if it were up to them.
Get a Dutch bank account, and fix your EU-wide problems. It takes all of 10 minutes
If a tourist from outside the EU attempts to open a normal bank account they will vary likely be refused. Banks want to see that you are doing business locally and their KYC/AML needles go off the charts with this kind of rationale which then creates a reporting burden. But if a bank is exceptionally flexible, I’m highly skeptical that they can have an account open with bank card in hand in 10 minutes. It would likely take much more time than they want encroaching on their vacation time. The fees are also a problem because many European banks have annual fees to compensate their overhead.
Then how do they fund it?
If a tourist is refused a normal account (which I find likely), they can demand a “basic” account which cannot legally be refused (though most tourists would not know about that nuance). But a basic account is especially crippled to not accept cash deposits. So the consumer cannot make an ATM withdrawal to then fund the account. And even if it’s a non-basic account, they can do that in principle but if the ATM works for them why are they opening a euro account to begin with?
Money transfers are extremely expensive for consumers in some countries (e.g. the US). $40-50 per transfer is typical in the US, plus ~3% for the currency conversion. Not even all banks support international transfers. There are countless small credit unions in the US and some have no intermediary agreement with a SWIFT bank to be able to offer a SWIFT transfer service.
Then when they leave the eurozone the money sits idle in an account that eats away at it. So they have the burden of closing it, or wasting whatever they cannot withdraw.
If you still think the idea is viable, you might bring that idea to the debate going on over whether Belgium should bring back more ATMs for tourists. See if they like the idea of tourists opening accounts for periodic visits.
BTW, Denmark is a disaster for getting an account open. You have to prove having a legal right to live there at the commune, then you have to wait 30 days for a social security number. Banks will not talk to you without that number. None of those steps can be done in advance via mail. People must start the process in person. It might be amusing to appear at a Danish bank without residency and demand your EU right to a basic account. I would guess they are non-compliant on that.
The Dutch Geldmaat is already a mandated thing
Apparently they are mandated to exist, not to actually function and serve all comers. The Geldmaats can apparently refuse service if they want because I’ve seen them use that power.
If a tourist from outside the EU...
Which is why I specifically said it wasn't a solution for tourists, but for expats/immigrants/exchange students/whatever. IF you're one of those, you probably already have a BSN, which means you can have a bank card in 2 days if you have a RFID passport and a phone.
If you're a tourist, this "problem" is likely a very, very time-limited issue, and if you really wanted cash, you could have exchanged it at home.
My point is, this isn't enshittification, things are hugely better than they were just 10 or 20 or god forbid 30 years ago. There are plenty of options, from paying in stores, to google/apple pay, to exchanging cash like it's 1972. Both my real-life American friends have zero issues in stores or at ATMs with their US cards, though both also have a Dutch bank account, since they do live here longterm. It really seems that this is a very you-problem, and you've decided you want a solution that doesn't look like it's going to happen here.
If anything, quite the opposite is happening: more no-cash stores are appearing. Hell, most people I know only carry cash for emergencies and presents.
Apparently they are mandated to exist, not to actually function and serve all comers.
The government seems to require that every Dutch person must have access to a Geldmaat machine within 5km.
It really seems that this is a very you-problem,
Victim blame is really fucked up here. ATMs are violating the GDPR by making use of undisclosed automatic decision making. Only pushovers blindly accept that the ATM is serving them well when some AI algo decides you are not profitable, or whatever.. we actually don’t even get the benefit of knowing what that non-transparent algo is basing its decisions on. It’s really a dick move to then say to those rejected by that AI processing are themselves the problem. People rejected by that machine aren’t even told what they need to do to not be rejected.
and you’ve decided you want a solution that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen here.
You’re not paying attention. The fix exists: shops like SPAR and Aldi give cashback. The purpose of the thread is to crowdsource information that is undisclosed. It’s unclear exactly which SPAR locations outside UK supports cashback, and who else does. In this shitshow of a hunt for criminals causing collateral damage to lawful citizens, we need options. And we need them documented.
You can exchange money at home. You can exchange money at your destination. You can pay by debitcard. You can pay by creditcard. You can withdraw by creditcard. You can use a third-party like google or apple pay.
There are just a handful of possible options. You're the one rejecting them because you want your single hyper-specific option to ALSO apply universally, when I've pretty clearly explained why it's not at all universal. Meanwhile, you're shouting things have gotten much worse, when they clearly haven't: lots of people have none of the issues you describe, and options exist today that we couldn't even dream about 10 years ago.
You're pretending someone is personally attacking you, but all I really see is a problem of your own creation. Maybe it's (slightly) out of your control by being limited by banks at home, but since you must take multiple vacations in Europe from the US for this to be such a critical issue, I imagine that problem can also be solved.
Meanwhile, you’re shouting things have gotten much worse, when they clearly haven’t:
Clearly they have. Ten years ago when an ATM tells you to fuck off, you could just walk a block or two down the street to an ATM by a different operator. That choice was taken away from us in the past few years. And it’s getting worse. Independent ATMs are getting boarded up and mothballed. The trend of banks leaving the ATM business and consolidating into a monopoly is spreading. We have lost ATM diversity and competition. And there are fewer of them. If you are in a small city with only Geldmaats and Geldmaat decides to marginalise you, you’re fucked. That was not a problem 10 yrs ago.
It’s unclear how you are not grasping that fewer options means less autonomy. Fewer players implies power imbalance. Monopolies are a bad idea in general not just because power becomes centralised but also because our data becomes centralised and consequently centrally vulnerable along with being exposed to centralised mishandling.
Yes, there are fewer, or no, bank-specific ATMs in the Netherlands than in 2015. There are more methods of payment or ways to get goods and services than in 2015.
Is that less or more? In 2015 I couldn't order groceries online, pay by banktranfer from my foreign account and have them delivered. I couldn't use prepaid cards in 2015, it's no problem today. Those are at least two whole new options that apply to everyone.
So yes, you don't have 4 different brands of ATMs in the same town anymore. For Dutch people, that doesn't matter at all, since to them, all those machines were exactly the same for many years, since that was already legally mandated anyway. That's why you almost never saw the common US sight of several ATMs in a row, that hasn't been a thing here for decades. I'm not fully sure on what rates different banks used to charge foreign accounts, maybe that was different.
I'm just really curious what the underlying problem is for you. Because I don't believe you went to the Netherlands and starved, you clearly could pay for things. But for some reason, you have a burning need to implement one specific solution (cashback) in favour of all the others.
Why? What is the core of your issue?