That seems like circular logic. If there were alternatives to credit card and CC companies, SaaS would use that. In fact, in some countries, there are and it does.
> The ability for a merchant to pull payments on a recurring basis from a credit card requires an incredible amount of trust.
Why? If the merchant can't pull this month's payment, then services stop. Perhaps you mean making a large payment in arrears?
Such as?
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vatican City
They all use the same system, namely SEPA Direct Debit. It has only been around for 13 years or so. The Stripe website has a decent introduction: https://stripe.com/docs/payments/sepa-debit
So yeah, as a Dutch person all of my subscriptions use this. In fact, I get a bit annoyed when someone does not offer it, because I do not own a credit card.