alt Hacker NewsI think the misunderstanding is that when I say “credit card,” I do not mean a physical card. I have not used a physical card in years. In the US, when people hear Mastercard or Visa, they usually associate that with a credit card (virtual or physical), meaning the money is not taken directly from your bank account. You pay the balance later, which gives you credit and strong dispute protections.
Debit or ATM cards are different. They pull money directly from your account and can exist independently of Visa and Mastercard. For example, some credit unions still issue ATM only debit cards that are not part of the Visa or Mastercard networks.
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> In the US, when people hear Mastercard or Visa, they usually associate that with a credit card (virtual or physical), meaning the money is not taken directly from your bank account. You pay the balance later, which gives you credit and strong dispute protections.
Europeans use these dispute protections much less, so Visa/Mastercard are mostly seen as expensive pass-throughs.
And I thing the misunderstanding here is that Europeans don't really use credit cards: we use the term "credit card" when we should use "debit card", but that's language for you. Literally, you have to go out of your way to get an actual credit card instead of the ubiquitous debit card everybody has.
And in Europe, when people hear Mastercard or Visa, they just associate the name with refused payments at points of sale depending on the luck they had with the merchant, or the foreign country, etc.
I do agree that in this case, picking MC/VISA is not really important. When I changed banks a few years ago, it so happened that I switched from a Visa to a Mastercard. Nothing changed save for the logo on the card.