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Comment by moffkalast | Hacker News Reader

The thing about debit cards though, it's a different system and they don't work for online payments which makes them effectively useless.

> People seem more wary of accruing debt in Europe; it's easy to lose control over your personal finances with a credit card.

Well using credit means you're taking a loan, and subsequently paying interest on that loan even if it's just a month. Why would you pay interest on a loan that you don't need and pay an exorbitant amount in monthly fees just to have the card? Seems like absolute lunacy. And here it doesn't tie into the credit score system much so there isn't a reason to do it solely because of that.

Luckily these days there are fee-less prepaid cards that work like debit cards, but function as credit cards. That's my go-to.

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>The thing about debit cards though, it's a different system and they don't work for online payments which makes them effectively useless.

Huh? That hasn't been my experience. At all.

I make online purchases nearly (yesterday I made two!) daily with my debit card with no problem at all.

Perhaps that's an issue where you live. I'm in the US, so YMMV, I guess.

In the US, Online purchases with a debit card generally do not use the lower fee debit card networks, but instead use the credit card networks. Basically every debit card in the US is co-branded by one of the credit card companies, and can be processed by merchants as if it were a credit card.

The lower fee debit card networks operated by the interbank networks that run the ATM system (Pulse, NYCE, STAR, etc) do not seem to be available for online purchases.

So while you absolutely can pay with them online from the merchant's perspective it is a credit card, and only the issuing bank is treating them differently.

While Visa et al do know this is a debit card, and could could offer lower interchange fees, I'm not sure if they do, and they certainly don't lower it to the same level as the debit networks.

This may very well be different outside the US, as they may not be fully seperate networks in every country.

>In the US, Online purchases with a debit card generally do not use the lower fee debit card networks, but instead use the credit card networks. Basically every debit card in the US is co-branded by one of the credit card companies, and can be processed by merchants as if it were a credit card.

Yeah. So what?

It doesn't make any immediate, practical difference to me.

Sure, it would be great if fees were lower. That would (presumably) reduce price increases over the long term and allow merchants to increase their gross profits. Having high "processing" fees is rent seeking at best and is likely a drag on the economy.

That said, GP's comment[0] (which is what my comment was addressing) that "The thing about debit cards though...they don't work for online payments which makes them effectively useless." is (at least in the US) flat wrong.

Edit: Removed extraneous editorializing.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32503287

Ehhh, no? Our debit cards are used for in-store payments, and literally every single bank allows you to use them for online payments too. We just developed systems which don't depend on handing random people a bunch of "secret" numbers and hoping they don't defraud you.

For example, in The Netherlands *everyone* uses iDeal. Basically, the store does a 302 redirect on checkout to your bank, sending along the money owed and the destination account. The bank authenticates the user, confirms that they indeed want to pay it, and redirects back to the store. It... just works!

> literally every single bank allows you to use them for online payments too

Please tell me how the hell I should input a 19 digit debit maestro card into 16 digit credit card number slots. It even has letters.

> iDeal

Seems like it's only a Dutch thing according to the wiki.

iDEAL is from the Netherlands, but of course many countries have similar systems (Belgium: Bancontact, Germany: SOFORT, Poland: BLIK, Sweden: Swish, India: UPI, China: AliPay/WeChat Pay, etc., etc.)

If you want e-commerce use then get a regular Mastercard Debit. Maestro cards require physical presence of the card and electronic interaction between the card and the POS.

European debit cards such as Visa Debit or former Electron are practically no different from a credit card in making online payments. They work just fine.

There are also credit + debit combination cards, which have two different numbers to use. They also let you choose which side to use on the payment terminal.

Yeah though those aren't true debit cards, at least not in the original sense. They're credit cards that work like debit cards that I mentioned now exist.

Actual debit cards are issued by banks and only have the much longer account number on them.

How are they not true debit cards? They are issued by banks, directly debiting from an account. Sure, internally they piggyback on infrastructure originally intended for credit cards, but that's an implementation detail.

Maestro, given you mention it elsewhere, doesn't necessarily have longer payment card numbers than most credit cards (which are mostly 16, except for Amex which is mostly 15): it merely has a number made up of a number of different prefixes, and the final section is determined by the issuing bank… and several of these are variable length.

I think the grandparent may be from a country in which a separate debit network, operated jointly by the nation's banks, exists. In such countries banks have typically issued cards using these networks and they may be seen as "true debit cards". MC/Visa are then often used interchangeably with "credit card", even in instances where they are debit cards on the Visa/MC network. (I'm not arguing this is correct usage of terminology.)

Anecdata: I'm from Germany, which is one such country. I've recently had a conversation with someone who had a "credit card" that charges directly to their bank account.

>The thing about debit cards though, it's a different system and they don't work for online payments which makes them effectively useless.

Everything in your opening sentence is incorrect.

Tell that to my bank lol.

This very much depends on the country. In some places there are debit card networks which are neither MasterCard nor Visa nor Maestro. In such situations your bank's debit card may actually be useless for online payments. Even if the cards are Maestro and an online retailer happens to accept Maestro (somewhat rare in my experience), that may not help you since banks will often blanket deny any card-not-present transactions.

I've had both VISA and MasterCard debit cards, delivered from my Swedish bank. Both had 16-digit card numbers, not my bank account number.

The only hick-up is that they default to 2FA: using a smartphone (domestic bank system) or card-reader (chip-and-pin). My bank has supplied me with a small card-reader for home use, which I also use for on-line banking. To order from an on-line vendor that does not support chip-and-pin, I'd have to also log into my bank and temporarily enable "Internet payments". This has worked for me every time I've ordered from US, Australia or Japan.

I (limey brit) use my debit cards all the time online...

To be clear, they're VISA cards issues by the bank with a 16 digit main number and the payment appears on my bank statement within about 5 minutes.

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