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Comment by thayne | Hacker News Reader

As someone who lives in the US, and travelled to europe, one of the toughest things was that many more places only took cash than in the states. Which meant I had to carry around a lot more cash than I was used to, knowing that as a tourist I was a target for theft (and I have been stolen from multiple times while abroad). With a credit card, if it was stolen, I could cancel it immediately, and I wouldn't be responsible for purchases the thief made with it. If cash was stolen, it would just be gone.

Also, I got a better exchange rate with my credit card than with cash from a bank or ATM.

On the other hand, I really liked that I payed for meals at the table instead of giving the card to the waiter, and that listed prices included tax.

That's not to say the US system doesn't have problems, it definetely does. But I wouldn't want a cash-only system either.

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This is not a general Europe thing. I live in Denmark and I only use cash to try and teach my kids about money. I can't remember the last time I paid cash for anything. I'm tempted to say it has been a decade or so.

Very good point about using cash to teach kids about money.

I just began teaching my kindergarten going son about money and some of the things he has learned watching us is very insightful. For all purposes, money for him is our phone. He has seen countless places where we pay with phone to buy things (using QR codes) and that has given him an impression that a phone can get anything from a store.

For me, in my own childhood days, money as in cash was easily understandable as a finite resource because once it’s given to someone, it cannot be taken back. So I learned just by watching that money carries a value and is limited. But just scanning a phone or card with no concept of finiteness will carry some repercussions I think in future.

Will be interesting to watch the future generation who might grow without concept of cash money.

I always withdraw cash money using the debit card when I'm abroad. It has acceptable exchange rates(always better than the money exchange rates at the destination country) and much lower fees(mostly just a fixed amount of €) than the credit card (quite high percentage + fixed fee).

This really depends on the credit card and bank. My old French credit card that was supposed to be great for traveling had 2.5% conversion rate plus 0.30 euros fixed fee.

My US amex is usually only 0.1% more than current market rate and so better than any debit card I have by far.

In my experience, European countries are by far the worst when it comes to exchange rate and added fees. One hypothesis is that interchange fees are capped so credit card companies can't make as much from the merchants but even before that happened, I remember the fees being very high.

The problem with exchange rates is usually that the institution managing the ATM/Payment Terminal tries to trick you into using their exchange instead of just charging your card in the local currency and have your bank do the exchange. And the ATMs exchange rate are a ripoff. You’re not a returning customer, so they milk you as much as they can. This holds true for both credit and debit cards. Check with your bank, they’ll give you the proper advice and it’s usually “charge in the local currency and let us handle the exchange.”

Modern banks in the UK such as Monzo, Starling, Revolut and others have no FX fees.

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