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.
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.
Even after a few years of living in the UK, I could not get a credit score from any of the three or so providers because they said they didn't have enough information about me. I guess being on the electoral roll and paying bills on time just wasn't enough.
Not having a credit score isn't necessarily a big problem, as banks use it for context rather than making decisions purely based on it, but I did see some advice online about getting a "credit builder card" [1] (essentially a high interest and low credit limit card) as a way to build up credit history.
I decided that getting in debt just so I can prove I can get out of it is a stupid system, and didn't do it. Last time I checked (with Experian), I had a perfect credit score, so I don't know what happened in the meantime.
Ah yes I see, being new to the country does not help instill their confidence either. True.
From your nickname it sounds like you are from Romania so if that's so there might be a dose of xenofobia included there as well. That is kinda big in the UK right now, the whole Brexit was fuelled by it, sadly, especially concerning eastern Europe. I was on the receiving end of some of it myself too, being called 'a non-national' and eyed with distrust. I'm sorry.
Close, I'm from Moldova! Not sure that it played much into it, this is all automated, nobody's manually looked at my score. I reckon they just needed n data points about me to show me a number, and I had n-1 (not that they'd tell you).
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.
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.
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.
This is a uniquely American viewpoint. In most of Europe you don't buy anything on credit ever.