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Mr-Fly

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2018
396
230
Frankfurt, Germany
Has anyone experience with boon AP outside of Europe?

Used it frequently in the USA in last May.
Worked really good although there are a high number of restaurants that still only accept swipe cards.
I used it once at a coke vending machine and they booked it but I did not get a coke. Happened two times. I betbthey had a problem with their vending machines. Took 4 weeks to get the money back.
 
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4254126

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Jun 20, 2017
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https://twitter.com/jochensiegert/status/1084704052901015552

Deutsche Bank: +7% more mastercard debit and credit cards on file
comdirect: 6 figure number in activations + average monthly transaction volume 255€ (vs. around 90€ with card)
Hvb: much higher demand than usual product launches
N26: strong growth with new customers after launch
boon: 20% larger customer base after launch

Deutsche Bank had at least 50.000 card activations for Apple Pay. Just on launch day.

20% of the entire transaction volume for Amex in Germany is now down through Apple Pay. Wow!


https://twitter.com/jochensiegert/status/1083462973966946309

A few days ago numbers were released on card activations for Girocard digital: Volksbanken and Sparkassen have a combined activation number of around 270.000 cards for "mobiles bezahlen". And they launched back in July and August 2018. I would also be confident in saying, that many of those activations have not followed through and the ATV is much, much lower.
Apple proves over and over again, that they can a) get people to actually use their services and b) users are much more excited and engaged with their services, resulting in higher transaction volume for the banks (one of Apple's main arguments vs. banks) and higher engagement. Apple Pay is also great for the banks.
 

docfred

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2018
938
573
Germany
Just to correct the numbers: they are counting about expected 30.000 real AP customers at Comdirect.

And the DB numbers are out of one single source that is quoted over and over again: Jochen. And he himself is the source for himself because he heard a number and did the math on his own without validation.

So you don’t have real numbers to compare.

Nevertheless you can speak of a successful launch.
 

Mr-Fly

macrumors 6502
Jan 30, 2018
396
230
Frankfurt, Germany
I must admit again I like the Ba-Bing from DB. They did in my eyes a great job for the start.
And i Must admit I believe the numbers. All AppleGuys around me are investigating how to get it. Some have to wait because of DKB as a lot of my friends have it.
 
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docfred

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2018
938
573
Germany
As I said, a successful start. But today morning there was an error in the quoted SZ article, that there were 300000 customers at Comdirect. Which was not correct. Now they speak about 30000 real customers.

That’s the problem with apples politics of not publishing numbers and forbidding partners to do it.
 

4254126

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Original poster
Jun 20, 2017
828
855
As I said, a successful start. But today morning there was an error in the quoted SZ article, that there were 300000 customers at Comdirect. Which was not correct. Now they speak about 30000 real customers.

That’s the problem with apples politics of not publishing numbers and forbidding partners to do it.

Sorry that's just not true. The banks are allowed to give general statistics (like DeuBa, boon and others did). They are NOT allowed to give out exact numbers regarding card activations etc. It doesn't need a rocket scientist to make a fairly accurate estimation (ie. bank says: "we're seeing triple digit activations numbers per minute -> x60 = y x 12 = activation in a day, maybe subtract a little).

Also my numbers from above, @docfred, are not just from Jochen Siegert (who btw was also at the official launch event and also knows a couple more people within the banks than we do ;)), but also publicly accessible information. Amex gave out that information a couple of days ago at the UNITI conference - check Twitter.

EDIT: And the numbers for Girocard are also from their own slides. All in all the numbers fit rather well.
 

docfred

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2018
938
573
Germany
As always: read what I wrote and don’t interpret. I did not doubt amount per tx or Amex numbers. I just corrected the Comdirect number as there was an error today in the article and the DB extrapolation. Read Jochens articles and listen to his podcast. He states hisself, that he heard that one number and calculated the rest on his own ;)

And the third time: a successful launch.
[doublepost=1547461971][/doublepost]
EDIT: And the numbers for Girocard are also from their own slides. All in all the numbers fit rather well.
Yeah. But this tweet is what I mean. There is a number of activations per minute in the first hours on launch day and he assumes in his calculation that this apm rate stays for weeks on this level. For 24h per day ;)

What we don’t know: how did the apm rate after the initial activation rush? We all did activate a bunch of cards in the first hours. Beside the German boon card there was my Amex and the N26 MasterCard. But what happens after two or three days? After a week?

To compare products you have to see the long run. Compare numbers after six months or even later.

Which does not mean that AP is not more successful. Which it is. But I am fan of neutral and objective analysis. Not of hype with wrong calculations.
 
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4254126

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Jun 20, 2017
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word left out, apologies. It’s 20% of the entire contactless (!) transactional volume.

Entire volume would indeed be ... mad.
 

docfred

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2018
938
573
Germany
Ok. Thanks. Then it would be interesting how many transactions of all transactions are made contactless to get a relation for the 20%... did Amex publish some numbers on that?
 

PR1985

macrumors 6502a
Jun 16, 2016
893
241
Germany
I got the message "boon." wurde von Apple Pay entfernt. 13 minutes ago. What? Card is still there though.

If you call boon. the line is completely dead. You hear nothing.
 
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PR1985

macrumors 6502a
Jun 16, 2016
893
241
Germany
boon. closed my account, because of my old request...:confused: New account set up. Now I´m waiting to get boon.PLUS back.

boon fixed everything fast. boon. PLUS back. For the transaction they send an overview (PDF). Secured with a password.

BTW boon. has still a lot to do a guy from the customer service told me. He could not say how fast they would switch my account to PLUS. My case had been prioritized. So, customer base is still growing, I suppose or many people switch to a PLUS account.
 
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4254126

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Jun 20, 2017
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855
https://twitter.com/guziaster/status/1085099938978193413

Dw8Mo6vX4AA2Su-.jpg


Our Polish friends now finally have support from ING Bank Slaski... Official launch hasn't commenced yet. Nothing yet from ING (DE). Probably still way off, especially if they only recently started working on the implementation.

I wonder if Revolut will be launching soon. All their most recent tweets regarding Apple Pay state "We recently announced that support for Apple Pay is coming to Germany. We'll announce more countries early 2019!" and a couple are "Let's welcome 2019 with Apple Pay". Now you wouldn't say that if it weren't to launch for another few months, would you o_O Then again... it's Revolut we're talking about :D
 

tobyx

macrumors regular
Apr 2, 2008
124
111
Berlin, Germany
I would contact Apple as well as Amex.

Did both!

Apple Pay falsely referred me to their vendor support for Apple Pay and copy pasted completely irrelevant text passages that answered nothing.

Amex has a contact form that is useless for this type of problem so I called them instead and got a customer service representative that basically said "Yes we know, people need to update their terminals. We can't do anything about that." I asked if they at least wanted to know the exact merchants where this happened and they said no because they can't do anything anyway.

Might be just 2 examples of useless customer service reps but yeah. I have more than 100+ Apple Pay transactions with my Mastercard, never a problem. Amex I have had 3 since activation, 2 at the same bakery and 1 at Cyberport where I bought a printer, many more failed (at Aral and Saturn and others, see above) and I will not try again for the foreseeable future.
 
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docfred

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2018
938
573
Germany
The bakery is the only place I visit regularly, where I can not pay with Amex and Amex contactless...

But sure it is true, that MC is much more spreaded.
 

revres

macrumors member
Jun 3, 2014
80
25
I totally agree that Amex needs to force terminal updates.

But I really had already many successful transactions:
My pharmacy, my supermarkets (Edeka, Aldi, Rewe) and many other places like my local pizza place or McDonald’s work flawlessly. But Aral is a pain in the Ass, because they only accept it up to 50€. My girlfriend fuels at HEM and there it is also working without any issue.

But I agree, only 70% of my purchases work with AMEX Apple Pay, the rest is Amex non contactless, and Apple Pay through Mastercard.
 

Fabian90

macrumors regular
Feb 19, 2013
214
355
Bonn, Germany
BTW... who ever wants to try a German Amex Gold, now is the time. They give 20,000 membership reward points right now if you get referred by an Amex Gold customer. I was just shown this on my Amex account page.
 
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