I've been a bit slack in writing up our journey around New Zealand as of late, so it's about time I caught up.
Anyway, were was I...
We stayed the night at the roadside in Pokeno. In the morning after breakfast we headed back to State Highway 1. We needed to refuel the van soon, so we stopped off at a petrol station in Cambridge (nothing like it's English namesake). This is where the trouble started.
I filled the van full of diesel with no problems, but when I came to pay for it I ran into problems.
I gave the pump number to the bored looking woman at the till. She took my card off me and swiped it. I assumed the system was the same as Chip 'n Pin in the UK, so I entered my pin on the keypad and pressed enter. Nothing happened. After a few seconds it decided to reject the transaction. I looked at her and she scowled and barked "Select account!" at me. I asked her what she meant. She then gave up and got the manager, saying that I was causing trouble!
The manager turned up. I explained I was on holiday from the UK and there was obviously something I was missing, but I had no idea what the woman had meant by "Select account". The manager took one look at my card, saw the Visa sign and assumed it was a credit card. He swiped the card again and pressed the CR button on the keypad (making sure to make me look like an idiot in front of the ever increasing queue) and asked me to enter my PIN. Depite it not being a credit card, this appeared to work (thank you to Visa and my bank!!!).
You see, despite reading through the guide book and asking people about the country, I was unaware that in New Zealand, people have one card and attach all their accounts (credit, current account, savings, etc) to it, so you have to select the account type on the keypad and then enter the pin number for that card. It's a good idea in that it saves space in your wallet, etc - except that if you lose that one card then access to ALL of your accounts is lost. I just wish someone had explained that to me before I inadvertently pissed off a lot of people in a petrol station.
Anyhow, I eventually got back in the van and we were on our way. Next up - Hobbiton!!!
There's a very simple solution to that problem. Get in touch with someone from this end of the planet and ask if there's anything that you need to know while cruising through their country!
Aus and NZ are exactly the same in a lot of ways, and what you've described is exactly how it works here too. Most Aussies don't have "cheque" accounts for their day to day needs (which is why we were so surprised to see cheques used so much in the UK), savings accounts are basically the same as your current account - it's just where most of your cash sits while it's waiting to be spent. Credit accounts don't need to be explained ;)
I think I should clear up one thing though - just because you can have all your accounts linked on a single card, it doesn't mean that they have to be.
I have one card for my savings account and one for my credit account. I decided not to link them together, because I always have both cards with me. The reason you have to specify the account is because the machine isn't going to know what account it's linked to (that'd be an unnecessary security risk), so you need to tell it. The rest works the same as it would in the UK.
There are two more things I need to point out:
1) Depending on your bank, you can link all your accounts together in the UK too - I did it with my HSBC accounts while I was living there (current and credit accounts on the same card).
2) We've had what you call "chip'n'pin" for about 15 or 16 years now, it's about time the UK caught up!
OJ
We did ask a few friends in NZ and they never mentioned it - probably because they are so used to it and it doesn't seem odd at all.
The main point was that the attitude of the woman in the petrol station left something to be desired. It wouldn't have taken her long to explain what I needed to do, rather than call the manager and cause a massive queue in the place.