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 Rhein-Neckar-Kreis. The payment card is nothing but right-wing populist symbolic politics that caters to racist prejudices and further marginalizes, discriminates against, and controls those seeking protection. Attempts are being made to further limit 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 daily lives. Although the payment card outwardly resembles a VISA card, the application possibilities are significantly limited. In many regions, including here in Baden-Württemberg, affected persons can only withdraw up to 50 € cash per month. In addition, the card only works in certain stores. Shopping in small shops, at weekly or flea markets, as well as participating in cultural events is thereby considerably hindered or made impossible. There are also high bureaucratic hurdles, as every new transfer or direct debit must be approved by the responsible authority. Everyday financial decisions thus become an administrative act. Therefore, we see in the payment card:
1. Disempowerment of those affected: Refugees are harassed in their daily lives and cannot freely decide where and how to shop. Frugal and self-determined living is prevented, for example, because affordable shopping opportunities such as second-hand shops, exchange, or used goods markets often cannot be utilized.
2. Restriction of religious freedom: To eat halal or kosher, people need specially certified products from stores where payment by 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 residence status becomes apparent when shopping. This can lead to stigmatization and poses the risk of exposure or hostility in everyday life.
5. Racial control and data protection problems: The payment card provides the state with comprehensive insight into the finances of those affected and serves as a control instrument. Although authorities formally have no right to review expenses in detail, we are already aware 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 of no concern to the authorities.
6. Additional issues: The issuance of the payment card incurs much higher costs and greater administrative effort for the federal states and municipalities than the previous cash issuance - although its introduction was supposed to simplify it. The waiting times for applications for more cash or a transfer to be approved can be very long. Direct debits may bounce, benefits remain unpaid, or have to be actively collected.
7. Unlawfulness: The flat-rate limitation of cash for asylum seekers to 50 € is demonstrably unlawful. Refugees already receive social benefits below the subsistence level, and now their access to cash is massively restricted.
8. Danger of extension to other groups: Refugees practically serve 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 a 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 people are working. 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 living conditions of refugees, the obvious unlawfulness of the flat-rate cash limit, the issues during implementation, as well as the high bureaucratic and financial effort, are not accidental but politically desired or consciously accepted. The aim is to make life in Germany as difficult as possible for refugees to discourage 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, as the reasons for flight and migration are extremely complex and multifaceted.
The arguments for the payment card are therefore merely pretexts. 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 isolationist policy of recent years. The payment card promotes racist prejudices, normalizes distrust towards 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, solidaristically, and practically. Through solidarity exchanges, we specifically support refugees in overcoming the massive restrictions caused by the cash limit.
What are we doing about it?
Since we do not want to accept the exclusion and control of refugees without resistance and want to show solidarity with those affected, we are organizing 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 voucher value in cash
- Solidarity people without a payment card receive the vouchers in exchange for cash
If you click on "Heidelberg" or "Mannheim", you will see where you can exchange in the respective city.
How can you support?
Feel free to contact us and/or attend our meetings if you...
- want to contribute your own perspectives
- want to support the organization of exchange markets
- want to take shifts at the exchange market
- can provide us with premises
- are organized in spaces and would be willing to issue shopping vouchers in your spaces
- can collectively take shopping vouchers from us, e.g. for your shared apartment, house project, your club...
- want to participate in a nationwide political campaign against these racist attacks
- want to support legal action against 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 example, for materials such as flyers or posters, small purchases like lockable cash boxes or barcode scanners, or room rentals for information events. Donation receipts can be issued.
Should the case arise that the financial buffer is no longer needed, it would be donated to the following organizations:
This means that your donation will make a positive impact in any case.
For a world in solidarity!
What do regional structures look like?
There are already initiatives against the payment card and exchange initiatives like ours in many cities. We are connected nationwide in the network "Equal social rights for all!" (Website, Instagram)
Are you looking for an exchange option in your city? You can find an overview of all exchange initiatives here.
Further information
- Scientific assessment of the payment card
Flüchtlingsrat Baden-Württemberg - Fewer and fewer rights for refugees
Flüchtlingsrat Baden-Württemberg - What you need to know about the new payment card for refugees
Landtag Baden-Württemberg