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Luckily, credit cards are really a second tier payment system in most of the EU. Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment system ar
by the_duke 8y ago
Luckily, credit cards are really a second tier payment system in most of the EU.
Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment system are the primary way to pay, along with cash. Apart from online shopping, of course. But even there, you usually have other viable payment options.
So it's probably not all that much chaos...
- martinald 8y agoNot in the UK, it's all mastercard/visa now.
- Filligree 8y agoVisa Debit, though?
- falcon620 8y ago"it's all mastercard/visa now" shows us he/she likely doesn't understand the vast difference between debit and credit cards. If anyone from the UK who does understand that difference would chime in, that would be helpful.
- makomk 8y agoIt's all Mastercard/Visa now in the UK, for both debit and credit cards - and I think Visa is probably the more common of the two these days. Debit cards are pretty much always Visa here and have been for about a decade now.
- falcon620 8y agoYeah, that's not helpful, I'm afraid. Also demonstrably incorrect. Amex is still operating in the UK, for example.
- makomk 8y agoThere is precisely one issuer of non-Mastercard/Visa credit cards in the UK - Amex - and they're not accepted nearly as widely. There are exactly five banks which issue Mastercard debit cards rather than Visa - Virgin Money, Citibank, Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank, and Metro Bank - and none of them are particularly major players. (I think it was down to three or less at one point; Virgin and Citibank only switched in 2015.) Santander and TSB have apparently announced they're planning to switch to Mastercard debit in the future but currently their customers have Visa debit cards too. Maestro is dead as a dodo here, and the old UK-specific Switch debit card system no longer exists. So in actual fact, people in the UK who're reliant on their debit cards are more likely to be affected by this than people with credit cards too, even if the cards are from the same bank - banks that issue Mastercard credit cards generally use Visa for debit cards.
- daledavies 8y agoYeah I've banked with 4 different people now in the UK and had visa debit cards every time. Anyway I got declined with my visa debit card earlier, tried another payment terminal in the supermarket and it worked fine.
- rahimnathwani 8y agoTransferwise recently started issuing MasterCard debit cards. I was surprised that (i) it's technically a debit card, unlike Revolut's card which is a prepaid card, and (ii) it's issued by Transferwise, not be some bank on their behalf.
- madjam002 8y agoMonzo and Transferwise both issue Mastercard debit cards
- fauigerzigerk 8y ago95% of debit cards in the UK are Visa according to the FT.
- the_duke 8y agoWell, you won't be part of the EU much longer. ;)
- aldanor 8y agoSame in Ireland.
- johnflan 8y agoVisa Debit in Ireland too, now.
- tialaramex 8y agoMaestro is wholly owned by Mastercard.
- krona 8y agoVisa don't issue or distribute credit cards, banks do. I have 3 Visa cards, only one is a credit card.
- elthran 8y agoIn the UK they do
- krona 8y agoI'm quoting Wikipedia.
- tialaramex 8y agoNo, they don't. VISA just owns the network that makes all these cards work in lots of places. Banks issue cards.
- zhte415 8y agoVISA and MasterCard have their respective networks. The banks issue cards that operate on these networks with their branded logo and packages with benefits, some of which are provided by the credit card networks, and some from the issuing bank.
- DangerousPie 8y agoI'm not sure about "luckily". Sure, today it might be a good thing, but 99.99% of the time it's just a massive inconvenience.
- wila 8y agoThe european debit card systems are not comparable with how it works in the US. In the US I will use credit cards, because that is the better system down there. Over here in Europe, I'll hardly ever use a credit card. So yes, luckily.
- DangerousPie 8y agoThis is not true for all of Europe. Here in the UK everything works through Visa/Mastercard, whether it's your credit card or your normal "bank card" (debit card). I really miss this system every time I go back to continental Europe and suddenly have to carry around huge amounts of cash with me. Because nobody accepts cards, and even if they do it's usually only Maestro etc.
- TillE 8y agoContactless payments have finally rolled out in most discounters/supermarkets and drugstores in Germany, it's a godsend. Just tap the card and the receipt starts printing in 3-5 seconds. But yeah for other stores and restaurants, better have cash.
- mdekkers 8y agoevery time I go back to continental Europe and suddenly have to carry around huge amounts of cash with me. Because nobody accepts cards You must be going to the wrong areas in Europe. Literally, everywhere I go (France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands in the past 6 months alone) cards are accepted.
- sakisv 8y agoI was visiting Amsterdam (from the UK) about a month ago and I was quite surprised (and annoyed) to find stores, even supermarkets, that have gone cashless while at the same time they would only accept Maestro.
- the8472 8y agoMany online shops take SEPA direct debit, which may be superseded by SEPA instant payments in the near future.
- blensor 8y ago+1 for SEPA ICT. Once that's rolled out everywhere it is really going to challenge the established online payment systems in Europe. Last time I bought something in an Austrian online shop it offered me the "eps" option which redirected me to my own onlinebanking portal after logging in the payment had only to be confrirmed with a tan and the payment confirmation from the vendor was instant. Basically the same flow as paying with paypal but completely through my own bank
- thesimon 8y ago>Once that's rolled out everywhere it is really going to challenge the established online payment systems in Europe Disagree. Most of the German banks that have just announced SEPA Instant are charging 0.50€-2€/transaction. No way the retailers will manage to convince the customers to pay that. I think PSD2 with the Bank Account API (think Klarna/SOFORT) is the bigger challenger.
- blensor 8y agoOh. I did not know that. I assumed that all SEPA transactions below 15000€ will be carried out as ICT if both banks support it. Well it seems they found a way to screw us over with another random fee
- ryanlol 8y agoI don't think we live in the same EU. As far as I can tell "Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment" are only common in a couple of really backwards countries.
- raphinou 8y agoWhat do you call really backwards countries? Seems maestro cards are used in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maestro_(debit_card) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maestro_(debit_card)
- Cu3PO42 8y agoChiming in from Germany. Our debit cards are branded "girocard", which is to my knowledge exclusive to Germany and mostly co-branded with either Maestro or V-Pay for international payments.
- zokier 8y agoFinland here. We transitioned away from national debit cards to Visas (and MC) about 10-15 years ago, I think these days we are almost exclusively Visa/MC. And practically nobody uses cash as primary payment method.
- gomox 8y ago10 euro-bucks says you're either from Austria or the Netherlands!
- krzyk 8y agoMost EU? It's first time I hear about country-specific cards. Or more specifically, all cards are country specific, they are issued by your bank which is in your country (and has country of issue language printed on it).