Hamburg was the first federal state to start issuing prepaid cards on Thursday. Fourteen federal states are planning a joint procedure, Bavaria and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania want to go their own way.
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) also wants to stop so-called remittances because they represent an incentive for illegal migration. The federal government has no information about how high the remittance actually are by recipients of asylum seeker benefits. "This is an absolute sideshow," says Kiel Institute for the World Economy.