> German banks seem to use their own system called EC card which is not usable anywhere else in the world. EC is the actual old name, it stands for EuroCheque

> German banks seem to use their own system called EC card which is not usable anywhere else in the world. EC is the actual old name, it stands for EuroCheque which was the unified European payment method long before credit cards or even electronic payment existed. Eurocheques were accepted as cash up to a certain max value, much like TravellerCheques, except that it was just standard and pretty much everyone had access to them. Later, debit cards were added with much the same guarantee. Nobody had a use for credit cards, so they never really took hold. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocheque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocheque