European Credit Card Usage

Why is paying with credit cards hard for Europeans?

European payment processors might be willing to serve you. No need for creditcards, debit cards also welcome.

Which country are you in exactly? Because AFAIK, in most Northern European countries people have credit cards (or at least debit cards).

Europe loves card payments, but you’re much more likely to see people using debit cards because the EU regulates card fees, making it much less common to get credit cards that do cash back or similar reward programs.

There are countries where card usage is not as widespread as in the US, for various reasons. For example, in Germany most smaller merchants don't accept Visa and Mastercard.

Is this something more popular outside of the US where credit/debit cards are not as ubiquitous?

"Standard" debit cards aren't really standard outside the US either. Maestro (chip + PIN) doesn't work online, for example.

Luckily, credit cards are really a second tier payment system in most of the EU.Country-specific (debit) cards and the international Maestro payment system are the primary way to pay, along with cash. Apart from online shopping, of course. But even there, you usually have other viable payment options.So it's probably not all that much chaos...

I’ve definitely seen some places in Europe that only take credit cards from within Europe, such as the French mobile phone provider SFR, and others that charge extra fees for non-European cards, such as the German airline Lufthansa. So whatever set of conditions leads to the outcome you’re describing might be specific to the Netherlands. Most merchants I’ve seen within Germany don’t treat European credit cards any differently from foreign ones, but some do reject cards without a 3D Secure system

Fun to see stripe in europe, however in europe almost nobody pays by card, or let alone: even owns a credit card.We pay by baking systems such as Ideal (in the netherlands).