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Asylum seeker sues over payment card instead of cash

The payment card model for asylum seekers in Lower Austria is now also being legally challenged.

(Bild: APA, Krone KREATIV)

While the Ministry of the Interior is pressing ahead with plans to roll out the payment card, a legal dispute is looming in the "pilot state": Because he can no longer buy "everyday goods" via the payment card on online platforms, an asylum seeker accommodated in Lower Austria even called in his lawyer. What the application says and what happens next.

In June, Lower Austria was the first federal state to introduce a payment card for asylum seekers in basic welfare support. "The purpose of the payment cards is to prevent the purchase of tobacco and alcohol and to prevent transfers to potential traffickers," it was said at the time - and is still said today. 

Since then, payment cards from the provider Pluxee (formerly Sodexo) have been distributed to asylum seekers instead of cash bills in eight selected accommodation facilities in Lower Austria. According to Lower Austria's ÖVP governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Lower Austria wanted to lead the way as a pilot state with this model. Because "if it works for us as the largest federal state, it will work everywhere", she said.

Whether everything really works is likely to be decided in court very soon.