Bank cards in Germany

All private customers who hold a current account with a German bank will receive some kind of bank card to access their account. In the case of minors or account-holders with a negative credit history, this may just be a card to get statements from the statement printer and use the bank´s own ATMs.
More typically, though, customers will receive a bank card which allows them to use all domestic ATMs and make debit payments in shops.

 The following symbols can be found on most cards and indicate what the card may be used for:

Some banks may add further symbols to indicate services offered, network affiliations (like "Cash Group" or "Eufiserv").

Many shops run a system called ELV (Electronisches Lastschriftverfahren, electronic direct debit) which is not sanctioned by the German banks and therefore has no official logo. It is also signature based but simply reads the magnetic stripe of a bank card and creates a direct debit from the account data contained in the stripe. ELV payments are not guaranteed

More information (costs, authorisation, guaranteed payments) is available in the subscriber section

This page is part of www.payments-in-germany.de and copyright by Christian Bartsch

Disclaimer: All information on this site is provided "as is" without any guarantee as to it´s correctness, suitability for a particular transaction etc. While all reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the information is correct and up to date, no responsibility will be accepted for business transactions conducted or losses incurred due to relying solely on the information contained here. Please check with an independent source wherever possible.
Apologies for the disclaimer, but the lawyers wouldn´t have it any other way.