Belgium's relationship with cash frequently confuses and confounds – for a place that should be the beating heart of modern convenience, matters seem rather anachronistic when it comes to paying.
What makes life difficult, especially for non-Belgians (of which we are many), is the lack of consistency: despite the option to pay by card now being enshrined in law, the realities on the ground are far less harmonised. Try your card in some venues and risk inciting the wrath of hitherto genial bar staff. Meanwhile many restaurants are card only – as long as it's not Mastercard.
Residents learn quickly that the way to go is Bancontact – a Belgian standard that should do the trick anywhere (that isn't money laundering). This system is also a doddle when it comes to payments online, with banking apps recognising QR codes at lightning speed. But where Belgium seems ahead of the curve in one respect, in others it's a bit hopeless.
Whilst other states have fully embraced digital streamlining, making it perfectly possible to go out with just a smartphone, experience dictates that when in Belgium you should keep on your person various cards (not forgetting the legal obligation to carry a national ID card or passport) and a bit of cash. At which point you can take a hike to find a functioning ATM.
Taking all the complications into account, various steps have been taken at a national level to straighten things out, the trend being towards digitisation in a bid to close the door to payments below the radar. The latest is the imminent end to cash payments for tickets bought on board trains.
Whilst other countries will fine passengers who have boarded without a ticket, Belgium makes allowance for this, albeit with a €9 surcharge for not buying a ticket at the station. The national operator SNCB cites abuse of train guards as the main motivation and hopes this will make their job easier, saving them from fumbling for change.
But the move seems a round-about way of reducing the strain on staff that have held successive strikes in recent months. Cash or card, the problem of troublemaking free-riders won't be solved without personnel investments. Elsewhere the discussion about boarding without a ticket is closed, is this the answer?
Let @Orlando_tbt know.
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1. SNCB to get rid of cash payment when onboard trains
In a move to make the job of train guards easier, customers will no longer be able to buy tickets using cash when already on board SNCB trains. The change will come into force at the start of May. Read more.
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4. Activist footage reveals severe mistreatment at Belgian cattle farms
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5. Brussels orange bin bag obligation pushed back to mid-May
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6. Uber fares allegedly linked to phone battery levels
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7. How Belgium used art and architecture to legitimise colonial Congo
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