Contactless payment needed

Grab All Association

Still awaiting a replacement debit card from EBS in post. Unexpected bill is due so I go to the Three Store in Limerick and they tell me I need to pay by card. I went and bought it in SuperValu instead.

Not really a consumer issue for me as I found it hilarious the fact that a product designed for people who haven’t got a debit/credit card requires a debit/credit card to purchase in the first place.

take note those who need a prepaid card

I'm a bit confused by the post. Are you saying that you bought a top-up voucher for a 3 Prepay phone in SuperValu?

It would be worth getting a second account with a bank like N26 or Revoult so that you have a spare card in the event of problems. It's never a good idea to rely on a single debit card as your sole means of payment, particularly with the way society is moving very rapidly towards being quite cashless since COVID kicked off.

I think even with the reassessment of contact risk with cash, you are seeing a lot of businesses realising that using contactless payments is far more convenient - less cash handling, big improvements in security, very few issues with errors like giving wrong change / miscounting notes, fewer issues with problems like forged notes etc.

There was a resistance to use cards in some smaller businesses, which was largely based on old bad experiences when the banks had complete control of the market for merchants and charged a fortune. With a bit of shopping around, it's now cheap and effective.

So, all in all, I don't think we're going to see a rapid switch back to lots of cash anytime soon.

Cabaal

Started using N26 as a backup debit card after I had awful issues with Ulster before a trip abroad, recently I moved to N26 proper and one of the benefits is they allow you to have 2x cards for the one current account. Handy to have the backup!