Comment by V__
17 days ago
> For many consumers there isn't sufficient money in the account to settle all the one-time and ongoing transactions they are liable for
This is a uniquely American viewpoint. In most of Europe you don't buy anything on credit ever.
Most places outside the USA actually. A liability is someone else's asset, and everyone wants USA assets, so the USA needs to generate a lot of liabilities.
I would never buy a plane ticket on debit.
Airbnb reservations I also tend to do on credit.
Anything related to company expenses I also do on credit and receive reimbursement prior to having to pay it myself.
It's just now how it works in most of Europe. I've lived in four countries, had accounts with lots of banks, paid for countless plane tickets and booking reservations, and only had a credit card once when I was issued one at work. I don't expect I'd ever get a personal one, and can't think of anyone that regularly uses one.
The only time I even considered it was to build a credit score in the UK to eventually apply for a mortgage, but even then it's not really necessary.
In EU to build credit score the best thing is to have no credit at all. I'd be surprised if the UK works differently.
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My only data point from Europe is Norway, where credit cards are widely adopted.
There are also official debt registries, where you (and prospective lenders) can look up how much debt you have.
A bit different than the credit score concept.
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Those 'protections' have nothing to do with the purchase being credit or debit. They're just artificial incentives from the banks for you to pile on the debt. We frown on that behaviour here in the EU so it doesn't really happen. The same with the cashbacks american banks offer on credit cards, they're just paid by the extortionate card processing fees that vendors pay. So essentially, you are paying for your own cashbacks because the vendors just include it in the price in the end (and usually for everyone, not just those paying by credit card)
Besides, if you want insurance just get a 30€ per year rolling package.
> Besides, if you want insurance just get a 30€ per year rolling package.
My credit card has a yearly fee of €36 (and it’s not like having a debit card instead would have been free). The total annual insurance premiums of all insurances that it includes (travel, third party liability, purchase) would exceed €200 from the same provider.
In Europe you typically have travel insurance on debit cards as well.
Certainly not the case in Sweden. Although travel insurance is usually included in your home/renters insurance.
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It's usually not tied to the debit card, but plenty of banks offer ad-hoc travel insurance as part of an options package with their checking accounts.
What? Where? I don't believe this to be common, and have some doubts about this existing anywhere at all.
There are numerous credit providers in Europe that would beg to differ.
By December 2025, consumer credit in the Euro area alone stood at an estimated €812 billion.
Are you talking about the same thing?
Sure, in Europe people will subscribe to a credit to buy a car or materials to improve their home.
But buying your groceries or lunch with a credit card is quite a rare exception.
There is a significant amount both in credit card debt, buy-now-pay-later type offerings (e.g. Klarna), and payday loans - it's by no means all larger loans.
It also varies greatly by country, but all major European countries still have significant credit card (not consumer, so excluding e.g. car loans) debt, with the most "credit willing" countries like the UK reaching around 1/3 the US average credit card balance (but you'd also want to adjust for average salaries before comparing these). There is no single attitude to this across Europe.
I would have said "true", or at least - I would have said "I do, but never incurring a charge on next month's bill", but with services like Flex from Monzo, you can actually get credit over 3 months with 0% interest rates, which not only makes buying stuff more likely, but spreads out the costs. It doesn't solve over spending though.
How much is it?
You could draw all of it and put in a a 2x leveraged SP500 ETF :-D for 3 month and then return the money :-D
How much is Flex? It is free. You have 2 options -
1) physical card, which works like a credit card. 2) You can flex payments you made on your regular card.
The rules are the same. If it was a card purchase it will more than likely flex (it will if you used the Flex card, account it will depend on the type of transaction.) But it needs to be used for purchases. I guess you could set up a CC processing unit and pay yourself, but it somehow doesn't seem worth it. You can't flex a bank transfer for example.
When you Flex, it gives you the option to "pay on next payment cycle", "pay in 3 installments with 0 interest", "pay in 6/12 installments with the usual big interest". But you can at any point pay it off and so you could do it over 4 months and only pay minimal interest and you could pay over the amount due and make it pay off quicker.
Just don't let the credit card companies find out. The reason they give the money to you and not the stock market is to diversify their portfolio.
Imagine if all the shares in Bank X were paid for by loans issued by Bank X.
"Credit limit: £1200"
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It is not. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/private-debt-to-gd...
The widespread use with "buy now pay later" also counters your wildly baseless claim. Klarna, PayPal 30 days etc.
Your link counts all types of debt including mortgages which is the reason why Luxembourg comes up first.
The argument was, at least how I read it, that europe doesn't rely on credit that much. My argument is: we do. We just don't have 20 credit cards at a 45k debt level. But we have enough other stuff.
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Just because you have to use Klarna doesn't mean you pay later as you can just select your debit card or even bank account directly.
... I know. But what do you think I meant when I said "Klarna" in the context of this discussion?