Frankfurt “Today only cash payment – cash only!!!”, is written on a note at the cash desk of a Frankfurt dm market. There and also at many other retailers and gas stations, customers have not been able to pay by debit card or credit card for days.
A quick solution to the problem, which has existed in many shops since Tuesday, is not in sight. The problem occurred with card readers of the type H5000 from the US company Verifone. You now need a software update. Verifone announced that they were working on a solution “with the highest priority” and were cooperating with customers and partners.
The payment service provider Payone reported on Saturday that “a first preliminary version” of the necessary software update announced by the manufacturer is available. At the same time, however, he restricted: “After initial tests by our experts, this is not yet stable enough to ensure a widespread rollout.”
This indicates that it will be some time before the fault can be rectified. Payone said it is still “in close coordination with Verifone to get a fully deployable solution that we will then roll out across the board.”
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Manual intervention at the terminal required
The new software alone is not enough. It is now becoming apparent that installing this software on the affected terminals is also time-consuming: “According to the information currently available from Verifone, manual intervention on site will be necessary to restart the affected terminals,” Payone announced.
The customer can either do this himself or hire a technician from the payment service provider. To be on the safe side, Payone has already “collected all available resources for the software update”. However, the company assumes that this “complex” process cannot be carried out “ad hoc across the board” but “will probably take a few days”.
The payment service provider Concardis asked merchant customers not to restart the affected devices themselves for the time being and to leave the terminals connected to both the power supply and the network to enable troubleshooting.
We are doing “everything to exchange non-functional Verifone H5000 payment terminals at our retail customers as quickly as possible and to make alternative devices available,” explained a Concardis spokesman. Due to the high volume, however, this could “take a few days”.
Aldi, Edeka and Esso hope for a quick solution
The problems affected include Esso gas stations, the supermarket chains Aldi Nord and Edeka and the drugstores Rossmann and dm. A company spokesman said on Friday that there were still disruptions to card payments throughout Germany, including in some Edeka stores. However, customers can continue to make cashless payments via the Edeka app.
Aldi Nord announced that the company was in close contact with the card reader provider and was working with him to find a quick solution. “We ask our customers to apologize for the inconvenience.”
At around 500 Esso gas stations, cashless payments have been disrupted since Tuesday morning, according to the oil company Exxon Mobil. “Esso is in close contact with the station operators and technical partners in order to rectify the restrictions as quickly as possible.”
Aldi Süd is not affected by the disruption, as the company announced. At Rewe, the terminal type from Verifone is generally not used. However, it cannot be ruled out that individual retailers will use it, explained Rewe.
Card payments are gaining popularity
In the past there have always been brief failures of card terminals. However, such a long and widespread disruption as the current one is extremely rare. According to Payone, the reason for the problems with the Verifone payment terminals is a so-called certificate error.
It is unclear how many readers are affected in total. According to industry experts, the terminal type H5000 is a phased-out model, but it is still widespread in Germany. Accordingly, 100,000 corresponding devices could be in use. Altogether there are almost a million card terminals in the Federal Republic.
These are used intensively, because consumers are increasingly paying with their card at the cash register – mostly with the Girocard, better known under the old name “EC card”.
Last year, the share of sales from card payments at the checkout in Germany rose to almost 59 percent. In the previous year they accounted for 56 percent, as determined by the EHI Retail Institute, a retail research institute. In 2017, cash still prevailed.
Germans still prefer to pay small amounts with coins and bills. Last year, 61 percent of all transactions were settled in cash.
More: Cash on the retreat: Consumer advocates want to enshrine the acceptance of cash in law