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Comment by omniscient_oce | Hacker News Reader

Myself and most people I know (early twenties) use what the banks give by default which is a "Debit Mastercard/Visa" which lets you shop online like a credit card, perform chargebacks, or pay in-store, but the money just comes out of your savings account like a debit card - not on credit (they get declined if your account is empty too AFAIK but haven't tested it ;P). Are these common overseas? I rarely see reference to it on here or Reddit which is presumably predominantly people from the US or Europe.

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> they get declined if your account is empty too AFAIK but haven't tested it ;P

Not always, at least some banks will allow you to go into overdraft and then charge a fee (e.g. $15 for Commbank) - so it's worth being cautious about running out.

I remember miscalculating and going into overdraft by a very small amount (e.g. a dollar or two) and then being slugged the overdraft fee - I would've much preferred the transaction to be declined, but that isn't/wasn't the default behaviour.

For example: https://www.commbank.com.au/support.banking.explain-account-... -> `CommBank may allow you to overdraw transaction accounts for the following payment types... Spend using your linked CommBank card`

(It used to be enabled by default with Commbank, not sure if that's still the case; but I'd kinda guess "yes"...)

Thanks for the info. I'll keep that in mind

Uncommon in the US as most major credit cards give you "rewards" for using them which amount to 1-5% off every purchase.

Debit cards are used almost exclusively when credit cards are unavailable.

Those are what the vast majority of people in Germany use (mainly our own girocard network, but MC/Visa debit are big as well)

Well yeah, most cards in Europe aren't 'credit' who would want that. If you want a credit, take a loan... Or use the store-financed 'free payment plan' for a fridge or a dishwasher...

One thing we have is deferred payment (usually 1 month). And looooooads of credit companies...

Some payment cards here (usually with 'store points') are with 'revolving loans' which is considered quite predatory... Wouldn't want to touch this with a space-elevator-sized pole.

This is very common in the UK.

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