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...
If anyone from the UK who does understand that difference would chime in, that would be helpful.
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.
Anyway I got declined with my visa debit card earlier, tried another payment terminal in the supermarket and it worked fine.
I have 3 Visa cards, only one is a credit card.
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.
So yes, luckily.
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.
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.
But yeah for other stores and restaurants, better have cash.
Basically the same flow as paying with paypal but completely through my own bank
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.
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).