Comment by anyfoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anyfoo | Hacker News Reader

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Person who grew up in Germany and moved to the US, here.

It's also worth noting, that credit cards aren't too much of a concept in Europe at all. They do exist, but I remember them mostly being used for traveling and online payment (e.g. when the seller is international and PayPal isn't an option). I recall that before the latter was a thing, it was even rarer. My father (who traveled a lot for his job) had one, and it was "interesting".[1]

My parents also strictly taught me that "taking a credit is a very bad thing, you are spending money you don't have", so credit cards had a kind of "dangerous" aura just by their name. As an adult, I of course have no trouble using credit cards here in the US (I just pay them in full all the time), and I can easily calculate that it usually makes more sense to buy houses and sometimes even cars with a low interest credit, but I am glad to have received that lesson...

[1] Also taxis. Taxis were special there. Back then mobile data networks weren't a thing, so electronic payment options weren't really available for Taxis. However, credit cards had this "ratchet" thing that was entirely mechanic. Couple that with the fact that Taxis spent (and still spend) a lot of time at airports, it comes back to the "traveling" use case, but this time inbound. I have no proof, but I highly suspect that most local people paid Taxis in cash, as was (and maybe still is) much more common in Germany in general anyway.

Same in Estonia. You use a credit card anywhere locally _only_ when you don't have actual money.

Somebody using their credit card once per month for local purchases? It's a sign that they are rather bad at managing their income and that's a negative sign for banks if you want to get a loan later on..

> credit cards aren't too much of a concept in Europe at all.

Yeah, no, that’s just a Germany thing.

They are not much of a thing in France either.

I don't particularly recall it being a thing in France and Italy either, both countries I have strong connections to, although admittedly I have never lived there as an adult, so I may have missed that aspect entirely.

It would maybe help if you could elaborate in what European countries you say credit cards are usually used for every day payments?

And it's a nice ever-perpetuating story from two decades ago.

Today we have several mostly-online banks (the largest is DKB with 4.6 million customers) who issue credit cards with which you can get money at the ATM without a fee. If you're using the "usual" EC card, you're paying lots of fees.

Consequently, many people in Germany today carry a credit card nowadays, and they use it for paying the groceries, as well.

You can pay with credit cards in every supermarket, in every gas station, in almost every restaurant.

Well I did move away a while ago. Those credit cards, are they actually credit cards, as in they grant you credit that you pay off later? Because I remember a friend visiting me, and his "credit card" was actually a debit card, just using the Visa/Mastercard/whatever system. He did not know the difference until I explained it to him ("why did you think it's called a 'credit card'"...)

Yes, you've got a credit line and pay off the balance at the end of the month.

Anecdotally: in running a B2B SaaS for >10 years, there are two rough generalizations I learned about Europeans (in Europe):

1) They are not in the office in August.

2) They are much less likely to have access to a credit card, even if they run a small business. (European customers were much more likely to pay via PayPal.)

>European customers were much more likely to pay via PayPal.

I have two credit cards and I often pay with PayPal because I just don't want to enter my card details out of sheer laziness.

PayPal also works well when the merchant doesn’t directly accept Amex

#1 - Yes, I have used it that way before.

#2 - However, our business accepted AmEx from the beginning.

#3 - Europeans are also anecdotally much more unlikely to carry Amex than even other cards.

#4 - My generalization comes from directly communicating with our European customers over 10 years. Their concern was not "I would like to pay with $CARD_WE_DONT_SUPPORT" but instead "I do not have access to any credit card."

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