Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Timo Hetzel, host of Bitsandso and a tech blogger/guy. I'm not all too familiar with German techies. But: As far as I know they let it slip that he knows someone fairly high up at Fidor Bank (and he also lives in Munich ;)).

We also assume that Rudolf Linsenbarth has connections to comdirect / Commerzbank.

Question is: Who knows more :eek:

Well, who would you believe more?
Someone whose daily job is to stay in touch with major bank representatives or a random tech guy who could possibly know someone that works for a not so known fintech (Fidor is mostly unheard of amongst „normal“ people as opposed to comdirect and the likes).
 
Well, seems they’re still busy modernizing their whole IT department and getting it back in-house. As well as dealing with Worldline as a payment processor. Also one of the reasons why currently only their Visa is used for Google/ Apple Pay. They’ve announced support for the Girocard in Google Pay for next year, let’s see what comes out.

Visa will push towards Visa Debit in Germany, so it's only a matter of time until slowly but surely VPay is replaced. I can't imagine it will be worth all the work to get a VPay card integrated in some way. It would make more sense to streamline the IT and payment processes. It's going to be very interesting!

Other than that, I would say that bunq and Revolut are the golden standards for banking apps - both are native apps with native elements and UI, not even N26 feels like they do.
bunq has the best app, for sure. Revolut's app is not bad, but the rest is just lacklustre. I'm hoping they up their game. My favourite FinTech of all is Monzo. If only they came over to Europe... In-house payment processing, great company culture, app is fantastic, so is the analytics / data side of things. I haven't had a single hiccup with them. And visiting their open office days is just great, especially to get to know the people in the company and other techies who are interested in financial products!

And Heinz-Roger Dohms (respected blogger / journalist in German finance press) has just published an interesting article on Sparkasse Vs. Apple Pay with some interesting facts. Achtung: It's in Germany (otherwise just use Google Translate).
http://finanz-szene.de/analyse-fuenf-gruende-warum-sich-die-sparkassen-so-schwer-mit-apple-tun/
[doublepost=1543266833][/doublepost]
Well, who would you believe more?
Someone whose daily job is to stay in touch with major bank representatives or a random tech guy who could possibly know someone that works for a not so known fintech (Fidor is mostly unheard of amongst „normal“ people as opposed to comdirect and the likes).
I "trust" Rudolf Linsenbarth and his information.

I don't know him, I've never met him, but he seems to be a respectable guy in that whole field of payments and FinTech. And he's got a lot of things right in the past. Also: Don't overestimate people. Most have probably never heard of either of them. :p
 
Visa will push towards Visa Debit in Germany, so it's only a matter of time until slowly but surely VPay is replaced. I can't imagine it will be worth all the work to get a VPay card integrated in some way. It would make more sense to streamline the IT and payment processes. It's going to be very interesting!
Well, VPay cards shouldn’t actually pose any issues with the implementation of mobile payments in general - they as well are included in the Visa Token Service VTS, so they’re all tokenized already.
I assume that these could be the possible issues:

- digitally storing all PAN numbers since they’re not printed on the cards(but cmon, this shouldn’t be an issue at all
- Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft doesn’t want the banks to only enable the VPay side of the card for mobile payments - and digital Cobadge of both is still not possible: girocard still doesn’t use tokens and VPay does
- Visa and Mastercard are actively incentivizing banks not to support these cards

Adding these types of cards would actually only require them to built a new part for the banking app where all card infos are stored (including card PAN) and where you see a „Add to Wallet“ button. simple as that - UniCredit Italy has been doing this with their VPay cards since the launch.

Something else I also thought about:
I would actually greet the replacement of VPay and Maestro with Visa and MC Debit with Girocard Cobadge. I mean, if the French were able to build a payment network (CB cartes bancaires) which can be Cobadged with both Visa and MC Credit and Debit then why shouldn’t we be able to do that as well? Modernizing the Girocard shouldn’t be that hard after all. Everyone would benefit from this type of development.
 
I "trust" Rudolf Linsenbarth and his information.

I don't know him, I've never met him, but he seems to be a respectable guy in that whole field of payments and FinTech. And he's got a lot of things right in the past. Also: Don't overestimate people. Most have probably never heard of either of them. :p

What is Timo Hetzel trying to say with his tweet? With 'multiple candles' he seems to be implying week 51.
Even common sense, devoid of all the IT/finance information we have here, tells me that nothing of this magnitude ever is launched Dec. 18-20. I think he just blindly believed what he was told here, without even doing a mental plausibility check.
 
Sorry but an Apple Pay Launch on Dec, 20th ist completely unrealistic. I mean 4 days before Christmas? Yes sure.... haha Looks like Mr. Hetzl is talking the same garbage as Essan K.. Maybe they have the same source?
 
Current situation regarding some apps:
The comdirect app has no signs of Apple Pay support as of yet
The Deutsche Bank app fully supports Apple Pay and just needs to be told to enable it
The N26 app already has all the Apple Pay support built-in since they already support it in other countries

Meanwhile, the Sparkasse app is a complete catastrophe. Built based on a „White-Label-Banking“ app, using very old and outdated techniques.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nishko
Current situation regarding some apps:
The comdirect app has no signs of Apple Pay support as of yet
The Deutsche Bank app fully supports Apple Pay and just needs to be told to enable it
The N26 app already has all the Apple Pay support built-in since they already support it in other countries

Meanwhile, the Sparkasse app is a complete catastrophe. Built based on a „White-Label-Banking“ app, using very old and outdated techniques.

Apple Wallet support (for Apple Pay) isn’t a requirement. comdirect is bound to stay without direct Wallet support and in-app provisioning of cards. The same goes for HVB and Fidor...
 
  • Like
Reactions: docfred
What is Timo Hetzel trying to say with his tweet? With 'multiple candles' he seems to be implying week 51.
Even common sense, devoid of all the IT/finance information we have here, tells me that nothing of this magnitude ever is launched Dec. 18-20. I think he just blindly believed what he was told here, without even doing a mental plausibility check.
Could be also after two candles in KW50.
 
Funny to read the articles from Finanz-Szene and I must admit some very nice thoughts about why to take part in ApplePay for the banks.
I also heard it the second time about iOS rate in a bank that Deutsche Bank seems to have a high rate of iOS devices on customers. And I do believe all the banks that take part did look at their access values (mobile bank access devices: only Mobile banking users will start to use mobile payment in my eyes) and judged how many potential customers they have maybe waiting for this feature.
I read in the Article that Deutsche Bank has more iOS then Android mobile banking customers and also the DKB stated they have More iOS then Android users in mobile Banking (reason for developing Card Control and Push first for iOS).
So to summarize:
I think the banks look on different factors then market share, they have their own data:
- usage rate of devices in their banking apps
- risk to "loose" customers to independent Credit card issuers instead of their own CC
- Risk to loose the customer completely because of missing features, which is would see with the young generation more than the older one.
- loosing more money in all these areas than ApplePay would cost.
 
I've been saying that hehe. De Tijd is probably the ONE newspaper you would trust to give this kind of info.
That's why I posted it. Put 1+1 together. If it's not launching tomorrow / latest Thursday, I'd be VERY surprised. Especially if they launch Belgium before Germany.
 
Last edited:
Current situation regarding some apps:
The comdirect app has no signs of Apple Pay support as of yet
The Deutsche Bank app fully supports Apple Pay and just needs to be told to enable it
The N26 app already has all the Apple Pay support built-in since they already support it in other countries

Meanwhile, the Sparkasse app is a complete catastrophe. Built based on a „White-Label-Banking“ app, using very old and outdated techniques.

Regarding comdirect: They will most likely not support adding cards via the app and the only way to add your comdirect VISA to Apple Pay is by doing it directly within Wallet. This is perfectly viable. Therefore you wouldn't find specific mentions of Apple Pay within the App or it's underlying infrastructure.
 
Do we know if they plan to launch iOS 12.1.1 at the same time as AP in germany (I know that AP doesn‘t usually rely on iOS updates)? This would make a launch today very likely.
 
Do we know if they plan to launch iOS 12.1.1 at the same time as AP in germany (I know that AP doesn‘t usually rely on iOS updates)? This would make a launch today very likely.

Starts happen in the morning.
 
BREAKING ( :D ) NEWS

comdirect T&Cs now showing again when adding the VISA card. But terms still refer to "X Pay" o_O

IMG_1069.png

EDIT:
Cards tested: comdirect VISA, Amex DE, N26 MC Debit, CoBa MC Debit
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Alanin and 12nine
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.