Stop Payment Card!
The discriminatory payment card is given to all refugees who receive benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act - since 2025 also in Heidelberg, Mannheim, and the Rhine-Neckar district. The payment card is nothing but right-wing populist symbolic politics that serves racist prejudices and further excludes, discriminates against, and controls those seeking protection. The attempt is being made to increasingly restrict the lives of refugees and to isolate Europe from the Global South. We oppose the restrictive payment card and want to make solidarity a practice!
Why do we reject the payment card?
The payment card severely limits asylum seekers in their daily lives. Although the payment card externally resembles a VISA card, its application options are significantly restricted. In many regions, including here in Baden-Württemberg, those affected can only withdraw up to €50 in cash per month. Additionally, the card only works in certain stores. Purchases in small shops, at weekly or flea markets, and participation in cultural events are considerably hindered or made impossible. High bureaucratic hurdles are added, as, for example, every new transfer or direct debit must be approved by the responsible authority. Everyday financial decisions thus become an administrative act. We therefore see the payment card as:
1. Disempowerment of those affected: Refugees are harassed in their everyday life and cannot freely decide where and how they shop. An economical and effective lifestyle is prevented, for example because affordable shopping options such as second-hand shops, exchange, or used goods markets cannot often be used.
2. Restriction of religious freedom: To eat halal or kosher, people need specially certified products from stores where payment with the card is often not possible.
3. Discrimination and social exclusion: Refugees are treated as second-class citizens with the payment card, and participation in social and cultural life is prevented.
4. Violation of personal rights: When shopping with the payment card, a person's residence status becomes apparent. This can lead to stigmatization and carries the risk of exposure or hostilities in everyday life.
5. Racist control and data protection issues: The payment card provides the state with comprehensive insights into the finances of those affected and serves as a control instrument. Although authorities formally do not have the right to examine expenditures in detail, we already know of several cases in Heidelberg where exactly this happened. For additional cash withdrawals or transfers, those affected must submit justified applications, even though these reasons are none of the authorities' business.
6. Additional problems: The issuance of the payment card causes much higher costs and greater administrative effort for the federal states and municipalities than the previous cash issuance - even though its introduction was intended to simplify this. The waiting times for applications for more cash or a transfer to be approved can be very long. Direct debits fail, benefits are not paid, or must be actively collected.
7. Illegality: The blanket restriction of cash for asylum seekers to €50 is demonstrably illegal. Refugees already receive social benefits below the subsistence level, and now their access to cash is being severely restricted.
8. Danger of expansion to other groups: Refugees are effectively used as a "test group." In the future, payment cards could also be used for other groups receiving social benefits. Such an expansion is already emerging in Hamburg. This would mean further normalization of surveillance, control, and restriction of social rights.
Supporters of the payment card often argue that it is intended to prevent transfers abroad. However, in reality, only about seven percent of refugees transfer money abroad, with the vast majority of these people working. The maximum of €441 per month in social benefits that refugees receive is simply not enough to send significant amounts abroad.
The massive restrictions on the lives of refugees, the obvious illegality of the blanket cash limit, the problems with the introduction, and the high bureaucratic and financial effort are no accident but are politically intended or deliberately accepted. Life in Germany should be made as difficult as possible for refugees to deter people from fleeing. In this logic, supposed "pull factors" are to be reduced. However, the model of push and pull factors has long been considered insufficient in migration research, as the reasons for flight and migration are extremely complex and multifaceted.
The arguments for the payment card are therefore merely pretended. The alleged problems that a payment card is supposed to solve simply do not exist. It is therefore nothing but right-wing symbolic politics and fits seamlessly into a racist isolation policy of recent years. The payment card promotes racist prejudices, normalizes distrust of refugees, and caters to a regressive yearning for authoritarian control.
For us, it is clear: A system based on exclusion, control, and discrimination is not "in need of reform" but fundamentally wrong. We oppose this politics politically, in solidarity, and practically. With solidarity exchange markets, we concretely support refugees to overcome the massive restrictions caused by the cash limit.
What are we doing about it?
Since we do not accept the exclusion and control of refugees without resistance and want to show solidarity with those affected, we organize exchange actions throughout the region.
The principle:
- People with a payment card buy a shopping voucher in the supermarket
- In the voucher exchange, they receive the equivalent of the voucher in cash
- People in solidarity without a payment card receive the vouchers in exchange for cash
If you click on "Heidelberg" or "Mannheim", you can see where you can exchange in each city.
How can you support?
Feel free to contact us and/or come to our meetings if you...
- want to bring your own perspectives
- want to support the organization of exchange markets
- want to take shifts in the exchange market
- can offer us premises
- are organized in rooms and ready to issue shopping vouchers in your spaces
- can collectively take over shopping vouchers from us, e.g., for your shared apartment, your housing project, your association...
- want to participate in a nationwide political campaign against these racist attacks
- want to support legally challenging the payment card.
- want to get to know us or have questions.
We also rely on donations. For the exchange actions, we need a financial buffer. Additionally, we need some money for materials such as flyers or posters, smaller purchases such as lockable cash registers or barcode scanners, or room rentals for info events. Donation receipts can be issued.
Should the case arise where the financial buffer is no longer needed, it will be donated to the following organizations:
This means your donation will definitely do good.
For a world of solidarity!
What do supraregional structures look like?
There are already initiatives against the payment card and exchange initiatives like ours in many cities. We are networked nationwide in the network "Equal Social Rights for All!" (Website, Instagram)
Are you looking for an exchange opportunity in your city? An overview of all exchange initiatives can be found here.
Further information
- Scientific assessment of the payment card
Refugee Council Baden-Württemberg - Fewer and fewer rights for refugees
Refugee Council Baden-Württemberg - What you need to know about the new payment card for refugees
State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg