Here is Germany it usually takes a few seconds (less than 5 I'd say) - I noticed however that paying at Aldi Nord is very fast. They really do tweak the cash register speeds at Aldi...
> They really do tweak the cash register speeds at Aldi...
Not only that, but the Aldi checkout operators are extremely fast at scanning products compared to other supermarkets (at least that has been my experience in the UK).
A primary reason for this is that ALDI products (at least here in the US, I don't remember whether this was true shopping in Europe a few years ago) typically have 4-6 barcodes per package--a box will often have a bar code on every face, if it's a house brand product. Makes for extremely fast scanning, true.
I also just noticed the dual-conveyor model in operation at a newly-opened Lidl near me yesterday. ALDI here typically doesn't do that--most stores are set up to place groceries (and unfilled bags) directly into a customer cart, and have a nearby counter to bag your groceries at.
Their scanners also don't suck. IBM used to make very high speed, accurate POS terminals in the early 90's. You could basically toss products across the sensor non-stop without any delay as long as the code was within view. The modern stuff is glacially slow by comparison.
ALDI/LIDL are outliers here in Germany. Other supermarket checkouts like Rewe, Edeka, and Kaisers are slower at scanning items. So don't take the speed of ALDI/LIDL cashiers to be indicative of every supermarket checkout in Germany.
Overall, German supermarkets scan items faster than in North America, but ALDI/LIDL are really in their own league. I sometimes think they are faster to scan items than to drop the contents of the belt onto the floor. Impossible to pack in real-time!
For stuff like vegetables and fruits sold by the unit cashiers still pretty much have to learn the codes to be fast. There's a grid overview with images of the groceries and their numbers to help, but eh, you can't look at that or else you are slow.
I still remember that 515 were cucumbers and I believe 529 were 2.5kg of potatoes?...
Interestingly, Monzo takes a few seconds (~5) to notify me of a transaction if I do it in Germany. UK, Belgium, Malaysia and Indonesia are all instant.
I assumed that there must be some further process that it goes through, between telling the credit card reader that it is completed and Monzo getting informed.
I wouldn't muddy the waters here with talk of Monzo. Most chip reader cards don't do what Monzo does in terms of real-time backend transaction verification, that's a generation further than the stuff being rolled out in the US.
Correct. Cards can indicate whether they need to be verified online or not. Most do not require this (so transactions are just recorded and processed some time later), apart from Visa Electron which was designed for under 18s, and therefore does not have an overdraft, so requires an online balance check.
Monzo take advantage of this to enable their realtime notifications and related features, otherwise Monzo would receive the notification of the charge up to 48 hours later which would be a significant harm to the UX.
Yeah because Aldi entered the play only very recently and so used top-of-the-line CC readers only, plus always a solid DSL link.
Old stores, especially small mom-and-pop ones, are still stuck with readers built a decade ago, or with modern readers uplinked by POTS. I recently helped my vet switch from an old POTS terminal to a brand-new, DSL-linked one; the speed difference is huge.
Also in Germany, I recently paid a bill by EC at my dentist, and it took over 2 minutes for the transaction to go through because they have a shitty old reader that connects individually for every transaction, and also over a shitty link (maybe GPRS only?).
I remember in uni the corner store near my apartment used dial-up (or possibly ISDN since at the time that was the telco's default solution for "I want 2 lines") for its card reader. If you were in a line of customers it was fast but if the store was empty you were waiting for 30-60 seconds while it connected...
We had one that dialed through maybe with a 56k modem but probably slower. Ended up sticking it on the fax line because a customer couldn't pay over the phone when it shared the same line.
