Consultation open till 27th May on taxi fares and requiring card payment ( link in OP )

You could get a Square Reader (like Sumup) as a backup, just €19 for the reader.

In the next year, Apple is also introducing the ability to accept tap payments on the iPhone directly with no extra hardware required, so that could be your backup. The ability already exists on Android, see vivawallet.com

If non of the backups work, then it should be a free trip, just like happens on Dublin Bus, etc. when the Leap card machines aren't working.

Otherwise we will just end up back at square one with some drivers lying that their machines aren't working. So either backup, free trip or €200 fine.

I've always found this reluctance towards taking card payments by taxi drivers rather foolish.

I live a short distance from one of the busiest roads in Dublin, I could walk out my door and wave down a taxi in no more then a minute. Yet I never do, I instead use one of the apps to order a taxi, because I don't carry cash and want to pay by card.

So rather then a driver getting waved down and only closing 1.69% on a SumUp transaction, they instead lose 15% to FreeNow.

I'm not the only one, pretty much everyone I know does the same, it is one of the major reasons that the likes of FreeNow became so popular, people were finally guaranteed they could pay by card. No more nonsense messing around with cash.

Guaranteeing every taxi took a card would mean people were more likely to wave taxi's down and more competition for the apps and thus more money in taxi drivers pockets.

Electron and Maestro are prepaid debit cards, like gift cards, etc. Makes sense that they wouldn’t work without a connection, as you’d need to check first if they have an available balance.

The NTA could define it that only the standard Visa and Mastercards are accepted and would thus work with the offline function.

Another option is payment terminals with in built 4g, they cost more, but they use IoT sims that work across all phone networks. Extremely unlikely that you can’t find a connection in Dublin across three networks, 3G or 4g and across dozens of different frequencies!

The reason I’m being so hard line on this, is that you and I both know that given any out or excuse of any type, unscrupulous drivers will take advantage of it and say their machine isn’t working, etc.

There can be no out, the NTA need to be hardline on this, all drivers most accept card, if card machine not working for any reason, then free fare, simple as that. It most work, just like your taxi meter most work.

Err... Do you think credit or debit cards have an internet connection built into the card themselves!

This is nothing new, it has always been this way. Think about with Credit Cards there are no funds in an account, it is the whole point of them, they are credit!

Generally speaking banks are extremely happy when a debit card has insufficient funds, that means the customer has to pay overdraft fees, nice earner €€€ for banks.

I'm sure you'll mention some crazy scheme where someone opens a bank account to just do a runner on a taxi fare, LMAO. These days you have to give a lot of personal information to open a bank account, you are unlikely to get away without paying your debt to the bank. If there is some fraud it will usually be aimed at transactions worth thousands, not small taxi fares.

No point in saying "Generally Speaking".

You were complaining about how to take a card payment in the extraordinary situation that you don't have an internet connection. Well solutions exist for this, offline terminals exist and are used widely in the payment industry.

Of course banks would prefer all transactions be online for obvious reasons, but they understand that there are circumstances where it isn't always possible and offer the offline option. Imagine if the internet goes down in Tesco for a few hours, do you think they sit there not taking any payments! Of course not, they flip their terminals over to offline mode and continue to do business.

"And don't treat me as a fool, Yes I know that credit cards don't have a wifi connection, however Google Pay etc does have internet via your phone network or wifi connection."

But again, your phone doesn't need the internet connection to make a payment. It simply wouldn't make any sense to force that on mobile payments. You wouldn't a situation where a person couldn't pay for a bus or a bottle of water if they had no credit on their phone account or didn't have an internet connection. It isn't a requirement for a credit/debit card, so why would they make it a requirement for a phone?

I've worked with this tech, I can send you all the documentation on this for both Apple and Google that an internet conenction isn't necessary and how secure enclaves work if your interested.

This whole conversation is BS IMO. If you are worried about internet connection, then get a card reader with an IoT SIM, they work across all mobile networks, 3g/4g and every major radio frequency. They basically jump between networks and frequencies until they find a connection. There is no way you won't find a connection with one of these anywhere in Dublin.

"Google Pay can perform transactions offline but you'll need to connect to the internet from time to time so that the app can sync with Google's servers."

Basically Google Pay stores a number of tokens locally which you can use for offline payment. Obviously you need an internet connection to first set it up and to sync from time to time, but it does support offline payments.

Apple Pay doesn't need internet either: