Hacker Read top | best | new | newcomments | leaders | about | bookmarklet login

Us credit card law is pretty strict. Don't know about Europe. I don't see Google trying it.


sort by: page size:

Is any of this (realistically) applicable if you are european? We're still reluctant to use credit cards at all here.

In Europe, for some sad reason credit cards are very rarely used and many stores don't accept them. Not to mention, if you do a charge back against a store like Walmart or Amazon, you won't be able to shop there anymore because they will ban you.

Oh my good this is SO COOL! This is even better than that Google Pay virtual card something something. Are there other countries in EU which have similar mechanisms?

Credit cards don't work like that in Europe. It's more like a debit card. You don't get the purchase warranty perks and chargebacks are highly restricted. They will sometimes charge back but you have to have real proof. It's not like the US.

This is why credit cards are really uncommon in Europe. Most people just use their debit cards that are free and can also use the regular credit card systems (with the exception of the Netherlands which has a different system). A credit card really only makes sense here if you want to use its credit. And if you do there's cheaper options.


This is about linking real-world credit-card payments to your online identity. People in Europe don't use credit cards offline.

Thanks, I didn't know that. May be something which hasn't turned up in Germany yet, or my quaint old bank has never come around to implement this. I'll go and see if there's a way to get that for my credit card.

Thanks for the info.


Credit cards aren't particularly popular in Europe, and especially not in Germany.

There is a way to do preauths on debit cards though, iirc by blocking a certain amount temporarily.


Now if Google only added more localized payment options. Did you ever try to convince Germans that a credit card is worth the €30 (per year) that banks typically charge?

Even just adding PayPal would improve the situation tremendously.


Europe? You need to be more specific than that. I find it hard to believe what you say and I live in eastern europe (Romania). I don't have any problem paying with cards here. It's an actual european law that asks the merchants to accept credit cards.

Credit card use is highly uncommon in large parts of Europe.

Credit card use varies substantially amongst European countries. In countries such as Norway, Switzerland, Finland, and the UK, more than 60% of the adult population has a credit card. And it's more than 55% in Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy[1]

Cash-back credit cards are rare in the UK and Europe not because of bans, but simply because of the interchange fee caps which don't leave enough margin for card companies to offer them.

> "Credit Card payments spread over several months are discouraged or simply banned"

Really? What country "bans" this?

[1] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit...


Indeed. I only use my credit card outside the EU.

thats illegal in many EU countries, if not EU wide. its even illegal to print on the reciept how much the credit card transaction fee was

It's illegal everywhere in the EU as well. If a merchant accepts debit/credit cards then they are not allowed to charge extra for using them.

It is not unreasonable to speak of Europe as a whole. Credit card transactions are common where I live, but not in most of Europe.

Pretty common in Europe. Whitelists, blacklists, limits, SMS confirmations...

You can use EU card in US with account nominated in USD.


Credit card transaction fees are regulated at a much lower level in Europe.

I've lived in Germany and the UK. Their reliance on credit cards is drastically different from the US.

Nah there's some credit card security thing in the EU they talk about in the Stripe API. No comprehension of what it is, but I'm not talking about GDPR or anything, just weird credit cards.
next

Legal | privacy