3 ms·

Actually I'm pretty sure my only card (here in France) is a credit card. It's written "credit" on it, after all (it used not to say it, but I was issued a new o

by seszett 10y ago

Actually I'm pretty sure my only card (here in France) is a credit card. It's written "credit" on it, after all (it used not to say it, but I was issued a new one recently precisely because regulations now say it has to be written on the card, apparently). But until I lived in Canada, I had never really understood the difference between debit and credit cards, I didn't know you had to manually pay your credit card's balance from your bank account once a month or so. My "credit" card just pulls money from my account at each purchase (well, a few days later). When I was in Germany and the Netherlands last year, every shop was asking whether my card was credit or debit, and I wasn't even sure what to say.

kayoone 10y ago
that sounds like a debit card to me.
- seszett 10y ago
  To me too. It certainly is written CREDIT on it though.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card#France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card#France Dunno how accurate it is, but i suspect your card has either a VISA or Mastercard logo on it. That means that when you are abroad the payment is done via either of those, but while in France it is handled via the national system.
- hocuspocus 10y ago
  It pretty much is, in the sense that there's no revolving credit associated with the card, merely a monthly limit (typically 2 or 3 thousands euro) and your account will be overdrawn if there isn't enough money when the bill is charged. The thing is, both Visa and MasterCard have credit and debit versions of their cards. And thanks to recent European laws, the card has to explicitly state which kind it is, since the transaction fees are different for the merchant (and are capped to 0.3 and 0.2% respectively). Now in France, you won't get a Maestro or Vpay card even if you want a true debit card. It'll be a MasterCard or Visa. Payments are either debited right away or at the end of month. And banks have started to emit "debit" cards for the former, and "credit" versions for the latter, but it's completely irrelevant for domestic payments.

by seszett 10y ago

kayoone 10y ago

that sounds like a debit card to me.

seszett 10y ago
To me too. It certainly is written CREDIT on it though.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card#France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_card#France Dunno how accurate it is, but i suspect your card has either a VISA or Mastercard logo on it. That means that when you are abroad the payment is done via either of those, but while in France it is handled via the national system.
hocuspocus 10y ago
It pretty much is, in the sense that there's no revolving credit associated with the card, merely a monthly limit (typically 2 or 3 thousands euro) and your account will be overdrawn if there isn't enough money when the bill is charged. The thing is, both Visa and MasterCard have credit and debit versions of their cards. And thanks to recent European laws, the card has to explicitly state which kind it is, since the transaction fees are different for the merchant (and are capped to 0.3 and 0.2% respectively). Now in France, you won't get a Maestro or Vpay card even if you want a true debit card. It'll be a MasterCard or Visa. Payments are either debited right away or at the end of month. And banks have started to emit "debit" cards for the former, and "credit" versions for the latter, but it's completely irrelevant for domestic payments.