Some five years ago, Dutch banks were battling to get the consumer to use chipcards for e-purse payments (small payments). As a part of the battle they gave away readers that helped the consumer determine the amount of money in the e-purse. Now that the use of e-purse becomes more widespread consumers and the Consumer Union want more of these free readers.
Interesting enough most Dutch payment and all load terminals for e-purses have a ?-button that tells consumers their balance in the e-purse. And most consumers will have the old reader at home somewhere. But apparently that is not enough...
....or is this merely a case of cucumber-news (Dutch expression for those irrelevant news items that can only become news-items during a dull/boring eventless summer).
