Comment by SirMaster
3 hours ago
But does this act like a debit account?
What I like about a credit card are things like you are buying on credit, not using money in your account directly. So in the case of fraud or issue a chargeback it's been much easier to get credit card transactions reverted rather than get money put back into my debit account.
Also I like credit cards for the rewards, cash back or especially travel points. But also things like extended warranty coverage and other perks.
> But does this act like a debit account?
Yeah, it's a debit account. I'm in Spain and use Bizum frequently. It's just a "pay from your bank account" system.
You mostly type in your phone number, get a notification (or text, depends on the bank) and open up your banking app and approve the transaction.
You can send money person to person as well.
Many European countries have a similar system. Wero is "just" stitching the national systems together into a EU wide one.
Credit cards with rewards and points are pretty rare in Europe, and if they do exist, pale in comparison to what you can get in the US/Canada. It depends on how you look at it, but it's kinda good. The EU caps credit card transaction fees at 0.3% and debit transactions at 0.2% iirc, versus in the US/Canada where they are frequently 2-3%. In theory this cost is just passed onto the consumer, so paying an extra 2-3% to get 2-3% back in points or whatever.
The nasty element of that reward situation, and why I am deeply in favour of the European choice here, is that while some people get nice rewards, some people just pay much higher prices and don't get rewards. So this actually worsens the divide between rich and poor to an extent, and that's just bad policy.
This is where American and European mindsets differ vastly.
We spend what we have. Our spending is directly reflected in one’s balance. We’re insensitive to rewards for spending money.
This is spot on. I consider myself an outlier, but only since not long ago. I’ve been using a credit card for everything but only because it gets me points I can exchange for miles on some airlines or exchange for gift cards.
I wish the “old school” banks here were more competitive in this regard.
> Also I like credit cards for the rewards, cash back or especially travel points. But also things like extended warranty coverage and other perks.
Much of this is funded by inflated interchange fees paid by merchants (and thus inflating the cost of goods for everyone). Ideally you would just pay for the added value you see (fraud protection, charge disputes, supplemental insurance) rather than those costs being externalized to other buyers.
Wero uses your existing debit account, it's not a separate account.