a true sweet spot
Less than half of French people even have a single credit card
Got a source ?
https://www.cartes-bancaires.com/cb/chiffres/ says 76M cards over a population of 67M (50M for people over 18yo). Sure some people have multiple cards, but that sounds hard to believe. (Also that's not counting non-CB credit cards. Those are pretty rare in France, but I have one)
(Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you said in "a single credit card")
adoption across countries https://www.statista.com/statistics/968220/credit-card-owner...
your link seems to be confusing debit cards with credit cards
Apple card is not a debit card, which is widely used in Europe, with much less credit card/debt normalized vs. the US
I don't understand how is that relevant to savings or Apple Card though? I mean sure Apple Card is currently a credit card, but I don't think that's relevant? In France most banks just give the customer the choice between credit and debit cards, and we just mostly prefer debit cards. Apple could probably just do that as well.
That being said, I guess the reason there is no Apple Card in Europe, is that you can't make 2%+ markup on card payments.
That’s a pretty unfair characterization of CC borrowing in the US. I’m sure there are some instances of that but most people have either a minimal amount on CC or none at all.
I thought myself fairly responsible until the pandemic hit and now I'm nearly $18K in the hole on credit cards I'm crawling out from under slowly.