About three weeks ago I moved from Hamburg-Altona to Toulouse Saint-George. Even though Germany and France are similar in many points, there are a lot of differences between these neighbors. While I’m living here, in the south of France, I’ll try to share my experience.One of the first differences, I want to focus on today, is the way of paying for goods. May it be the train ticket, any electronic device or the coffee at the bakery, in France, other than in Germany, you can pay everywhere using a credit card. This is so convenient, that on my first weekend back in Germany, I forgot to bring cash. I can not tell if the cost to process the payments is less in France than in Germany, but I have never seen a “credit cards accepted for purchases higher 20€” sign in France. Even for higher prices, credit cards are often not accepted in Germany (e.g. at IKEA or MediaMarkt – the German equivalent to Bestbuy).
Besides the acceptance of credit cards, it’s common to use a complete ancient technology to pay for goods: Cheques. I rarely had contact with cheques in my 33 years in Germany. If I remember well, it was two times, once I got a payment from a U.S. bank in 2000 and another time was in the late 80s when me and my brothers won a price which was payed with a cheque. In the first 3 weeks in France I have not only seen people paying with cheques in the supermarket, but also got one myself without having any idea how to cash it in. The other time I was asked to pay a eBay auction with a cheque. Besides the simplicity of PayPal, we have SEPA which allows free EU-wide money transfer. Both was first not accepted by the seller, as it was not secure enough- I wonder how sending a cheque in a paper envelope is more secure.
The modern France is with the acceptance of credit cards, so far it is behind by using paper where you just write a number on to pay for goods. I wonder how the difference between Germany and France changes once ApplePay reaches Both countries. I’m still hoping for a wider acceptance of credit cards in Germany and I don’t believe it will change the usage of cheques in France.