Stop Payment Card!
The discriminatory payment card is received by 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 more than right-wing populist symbolic politics, which serves racist prejudices and further marginalizes, discriminates against, and controls those seeking protection. Attempts are 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 put solidarity into practice!
Why do we reject the payment card?
The payment card severely restricts asylum seekers in their way of life. Although the payment card externally resembles a VISA card, the application possibilities are significantly restricted. In many regions, including here in Baden-Württemberg, affected individuals can withdraw only up to €50 in cash per month. Additionally, the card functions only in certain stores. Shopping in small shops, at weekly or flea markets, as well as participating in cultural events, is thereby considerably hindered or rendered impossible. Added to this are high bureaucratic hurdles, since each new transfer or direct debit, for example, must be approved by the responsible authority. Everyday financial decisions thus become a bureaucratic act. Therefore, we see the payment card as a means of:
1. Disempowerment of the affected: Refugees are restricted in their daily lives and cannot decide freely where and how to shop. A frugal and self-effective lifestyle is prevented, for example, because affordable shopping options such as second-hand shops, swap or used goods markets often cannot be used.
2. Restriction of freedom of religion: To be able to eat halal or kosher, people need specially certified products from stores where payment with the payment card is often not possible.
3. Discrimination and social exclusion: Refugees are treated as second-class citizens with the payment card, preventing participation in social and cultural life.
4. Violation of personal rights: With the payment card, a person's residency status becomes apparent when shopping. This can lead to stigmatization and poses the risk of exposure or hostility in everyday life.
5. Racist control and data protection issues: The payment card gives the state comprehensive insights into the finances of the affected and serves as a control instrument. Although authorities formally have no right to check expenses in detail, we know of several cases in Heidelberg where exactly this happened. For additional cash withdrawals or transfers, affected individuals must submit justified applications, although these reasons are none of the authorities' business.
6. Additional problems: The issuance of the payment card causes significantly higher costs and administrative effort for the federal states and municipalities than the previous cash issuance - even though the introduction was supposed to simplify this. The waiting times until applications for more cash or transfers are approved can be very long. Direct debits bounce, benefits fail to arrive, or must be actively collected by the individual.
7. Illegality: The flat cash restriction for asylum seekers to €50 is demonstrably illegal. Refugees already receive social benefits below the subsistence level, and now their access to cash is massively restricted.
8. Risk of extension to other groups: Refugees are effectively serving as a "test group". In the future, payment cards could also be used for other groups receiving social benefits. Such an extension is already emerging in Hamburg. This would mean further normalization of surveillance, control, and restriction of social rights.
Proponents of the payment card often argue that it is intended to prevent transfers abroad. In reality, however, only about seven percent of refugees transfer money abroad at all, the majority of these individuals work. The maximum of €441 per month in social benefits that refugees receive is simply not enough to transfer significant amounts abroad.
The massive restrictions on the way of life of refugees, the obvious illegality of the flat cash limit, the problems with the introduction, as well as the high bureaucratic and financial effort, are not oversights, but politically wanted or consciously accepted. Refugees should be made to live in Germany as difficult as possible to deter people from fleeing. In this logic, supposed "pull factors" are to be reduced. However, the model of push and pull factors in migration research has long been considered inadequate because the causes of flight and migration are extremely complex and manifold.
The arguments for the payment card are therefore merely put forward. The alleged problems that a payment card is supposed to solve simply do not exist. It is nothing but right-wing symbolic politics and fits seamlessly into a racist isolationist policy of recent years. The payment card promotes racist prejudices, normalizes distrust of refugees and caters to a regressive longing 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 policy politically, in solidarity, and in practice. With solidarity exchanges, we support refugees in overcoming the massive restrictions due to the cash limit.
What are we doing about it?
Since we do not want to accept this 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
- During the voucher exchange, they receive the voucher value in cash
- Supportive people 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 the respective city.
How can you support?
Feel free to contact us and/or come to our meetings if you...
- want to contribute your perspectives
- want to support the organization of exchanges
- want to take on shifts in the exchange
- can provide us with premises
- are organized in rooms and are ready to issue shopping vouchers in your rooms
- can collectively take shopping vouchers from us, e.g. for your flat share, your house project, your association...
- want to contribute to a nationwide political campaign against these racist attacks
- want to support taking legal action against the payment card.
- want to get to know us or have questions.
We are also dependent on donations. For the exchange actions, we need a financial buffer. Additionally, we need some money for things like materials such as flyers or posters, small purchases such as lockable cash boxes or barcode scanners, or room rents for information events. Donation receipts can be issued.
If the case arises that the financial buffer is no longer needed, it would be donated to the following organizations:
This means that your donation will do good in any case.
For a world of solidarity!
What do the regional 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