Oh don't get me started with the EC card shenanigans - I've had so many problems in Munich with shops demanding an EC card as the only form of card accepted.
Drives me crazy that in some cases it's either that (which is unavailable to non German residents) or cash....
There's a reason for those so called "shenanigans".
The merchant fees for EC card are the lowest amongst all cards. Pretty much all banks issue EC cards. Earlier, merchant fees could not be passed along to the consumer. Earlier this year, a change in regulation meant these fees would now be passed on to the consumer [0].
I foresee a future where there will be two prices (1) Payment w/o credit card and (2) Payment with EC card. I don't see why EC card owners should bear the costs of people who want to use credit card as a convenience.
I would completely understand if other types of debit card were accepted - but at least in the vast majority of my arguments with local shop owners, Visa Debit or Mastercard Debit are not accepted - cards which are otherwise accepted globally.
I understand if the the fees accepted need to be added on and covered by the consumer who wants to pay with the most convenient form of payment they have - but again in Germany that's not even a possibility. I find it quite strange that it's one of the only places (if not the only place) in Western Europe where you struggle to pay with either cash or a card type that is only available in the country.
I foresee a future in which the "EC card" (please let's call it Girocard, because that's it's name) ceases to exist in a few years.
Banks are already in the process of issuing Visa or MasterCard debit cards to customers as top-of-wallet product, and issuing girocards only on request, sometimes also with additional fees. Visa/MC debit cards have much easier integration with Apple and Google Pay. And they can be used online, and are easier to be used internationally, as they are accepted in most places where Visa/MC credit cards are accepted, too.
The recent deprecation of the Maestro card scheme by MasterCard, which has been co-badged on virtually every Girocard for many years and which allowed the cards to be used during international trips in most countries, has only resulted in aforementioned moves of banks away from the Girocard to be accelerated.
If the EPI does not quickly come up with a card scheme that is a) very very cheap for merchants and b) rolled out quickly in all of Europe, the debit card market in Germany will fall into the hands of Visa and MasterCard. That's just how it is, unfortunately.
The bad joke behind all of this is that this entire outcome has essentially been kick-started by the European Union moving to cap interchange fees on Visa/MC debit and credit transactions - a move against Visa and MC, but one that backfired and opened the doors for national card schemes to essentially be eaten alive by those very two actors. That's because that move made these transactions cheap enough for many big merchants to start accepting these cards in the first place. Before the cap, those rates were outrageously expensive, and virtually nobody outside of the travel business accepted them.
Ironically, an EC card these days is just a MasterCard. They used to be called EC (EuroCheque) card, but rebranded in 2007 when MasterCard was ousted from the system. MC kept the brand rights and didn't do anything with them for a decade. Meanwhile people kept using the old name. Now, however, MC started using the brand for some debit MasterCards, which can lead to great confusion by unsuspecting merchants.
That said, for many shops it was either girocard and cash or just cash only. Merchants just weren't willing to eat the fees associated with other card schemes.
Things have changed, though. The EU has capped the interchange fees of four party debit and credit cards to 0.2% and 0.3% respectively and now most shops tend to accept MasterCard and Visa as well.
It's not just a MasterCard. There are still shops that will accept Maestro and not MasterCard. Further, some girocards, like mine, a V-Pay cards, Visa's equivalent, and not co-branded with Maestro.
Maestro is disjoint from MasterCard, this is correct. But it's also unrelated to what I said. You're right that many girocards are co-branded with Maestro and not MasterCards. However, they are not "EC cards".
Those cards that actually use the "ec" brand (rather than girocard) are proper debit MasterCards. You can see this on MasterCards German website [0]. Some banks are also using that branding to issue cards [1].
Beyond that, there are some girocards which are co-branded not with Maestro, but with MasterCard proper [2], although that is also unrelated to my previous statement.
Drives me crazy that in some cases it's either that (which is unavailable to non German residents) or cash....