Comment by jeromechoo
13 days ago
This is an American-centric POV. I can’t speak for Europe but in many parts of Asia payments are most commonly done as a transfer of digital cash rather than credit. Whether it’s “consumer friendly” is not particularly relevant. People already accept it as a way to transact and there’s very little reason to switch to credit cards.
Over here in Australia, it is mostly Visa and Mastercard debit cards in use (credit cards are available, but expensive and no longer popular). Your money still disappears from your account immediately, but you still can get a refund when using a payment network. Whereas a bank gets to say 'can't help, contact the vendor'. I suspect this is a result of how our consumer protection laws are setup, as the payment network takes on certain legal responsibilities when they accept my cash, even it they then just pass most of it on to the actual vendor. I guess that can work here, as until eCommerce arrived you were rarely making a payment over an international border.