4 ms·

Why is paying with credit cards hard for Europeans?

by raquo 11y ago

dutchbrit 11y ago
Because the majority don't have/want credit cards.
- raquo 11y ago
  Oh, you mean you mostly use non-VISA/MC debit cards like we do in Canada? (we have Interac)
- openservices 11y ago
  how do you pay for things online?
  - lucb1e 11y ago
    In Belgium something called MrCash is popular, The Netherlands has iDeal supported by pretty much all banks. Other than that: bank transfers, direct debit, or third-party things like PayPal (or in my case, Bitcoin).
- slapresta 11y ago
  I'm European and I'm yet to find a credit card field where I can't put my debit card number. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
  - lucb1e 11y ago
    Debit card number is not your IBAN, right? Because that's the only number on my bank card and it never works (because all forms want your "credit card" number, I thought).
    - slapresta 11y ago
      Oh, no, it's not your IBAN. It's a number that looks like a credit card number, but the card it points to is actually a debit card.
- viraptor 11y ago
  What kind of credit card form doesn't allow debit cards? I've never seen one and been shopping all over Europe, both online and in person.
jpalomaki 11y ago
I can only comment for Finland, but at least here it is not so common for people to have company credit cards. If you want to buy something for the company you then either need to find out the person who has the card or use your personal credit card. Both options are bit cumbersome. Getting the person who has the card to enter the necessary card details to a web site is not always convenient. On the other hand passing the card number, cvc etc to many people in the company has certain risks associated with it. Using personal credit card is painful, especially with monthly fees, since you need to do all the paperwork to get money from company. Usually the credit card invoices are not enough for the bookkeeping. You need to have more detailed record about what was purchased and about the VAT included in the price. With shared company credit cards somebody then ends up chasing the actual receipts, which happen to be in somebody's inbox. In most cases it is just so much easier to handle things with invoicing. The invoices are handled electronically and usually companies have systems in place which allow the accounting department to just pass the incoming invoice to whoever for approval. A quite good solution this would be a virtual credit card service where somebody could assign "virtual cards" to whoever on the company and put specific monthly/yearly limits on those. It would be pretty nice to add the collection of receipts to this one as well. So the person responsible for specific virtual card, would also upload the invoices that match to the payments made.

Why is paying with credit cards hard for Europeans?

by raquo 11y ago

Why is paying with credit cards hard for Europeans?

dutchbrit 11y ago

Because the majority don't have/want credit cards.

raquo 11y ago
Oh, you mean you mostly use non-VISA/MC debit cards like we do in Canada? (we have Interac)
openservices 11y ago
how do you pay for things online?
- lucb1e 11y ago
  In Belgium something called MrCash is popular, The Netherlands has iDeal supported by pretty much all banks. Other than that: bank transfers, direct debit, or third-party things like PayPal (or in my case, Bitcoin).
slapresta 11y ago
I'm European and I'm yet to find a credit card field where I can't put my debit card number. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
- lucb1e 11y ago
  Debit card number is not your IBAN, right? Because that's the only number on my bank card and it never works (because all forms want your "credit card" number, I thought).
  - slapresta 11y ago
    Oh, no, it's not your IBAN. It's a number that looks like a credit card number, but the card it points to is actually a debit card.
viraptor 11y ago
What kind of credit card form doesn't allow debit cards? I've never seen one and been shopping all over Europe, both online and in person.

jpalomaki 11y ago

I can only comment for Finland, but at least here it is not so common for people to have company credit cards. If you want to buy something for the company you then either need to find out the person who has the card or use your personal credit card. Both options are bit cumbersome. Getting the person who has the card to enter the necessary card details to a web site is not always convenient. On the other hand passing the card number, cvc etc to many people in the company has certain risks associated with it. Using personal credit card is painful, especially with monthly fees, since you need to do all the paperwork to get money from company. Usually the credit card invoices are not enough for the bookkeeping. You need to have more detailed record about what was purchased and about the VAT included in the price. With shared company credit cards somebody then ends up chasing the actual receipts, which happen to be in somebody's inbox. In most cases it is just so much easier to handle things with invoicing. The invoices are handled electronically and usually companies have systems in place which allow the accounting department to just pass the incoming invoice to whoever for approval. A quite good solution this would be a virtual credit card service where somebody could assign "virtual cards" to whoever on the company and put specific monthly/yearly limits on those. It would be pretty nice to add the collection of receipts to this one as well. So the person responsible for specific virtual card, would also upload the invoices that match to the payments made.