Germany is very debit-card oriented (with no interest of switching). The Netherlands seems similar. Eastern Europe and the Balkans are also mostly debit-card oriented, but people seem more open to switching to credit cards (if they can get one - especially the younger generation).
Ireland and the U.K. seem much more credit-card oriented than rest of Europe. Turkey is also very CC oriented (kinda strange - was not expecting that).
In the UK people predominantly use debit cards but credit cards are widely available. Everyone gets a debit card with any current account (i.e. non-savings account). In March this year there were 2.3 billion debit card transactions vs 400 million credit card transactions according to this:
Italy is also super oriented on debit cards. People call them "credit card" because they don't know the difference, or even "Bancomat" which is the brand name of the most used Italian debit card network.
Italians don't really care about credit cards, they just want to pay with their "Bancomat" card.
The preferential treatment of credit cards for certain transactions influences how they're used in the UK.
Suppose in January two people Carol and Dave bought a £250 August flight to Paris from some outfit that didn't do a great job hedging their fuel prices. Carol used her credit card, Dave used his Debit card. UK law says Carol's flight was bought by her bank, after all her bank handed over the money, Carol is on the hook to pay them back but didn't directly pay. But Dave bought his ticket, the bank isn't responsible.
Today the airline fails because their fuel costs blew up. UK law says Carol should be able to get her money back from the bank because they bought this ticket and now it won't work -- this is called "Section 75". Dave may have some protections via other consumer protection rules, but he's more likely to end up losing out.
The best chance for Dave might be "Chargeback" which is a card scheme which might let Dave tell his bank that he now wishes he didn't pay for the ticket. It's not very likely to work because January is a long time ago and so the bank will probably argue that Dave should have realised earlier that he didn't want to make this transaction. Because this flight touches the EU there are a bunch of extra protections which might help, none of them is as simple as Section 75.
The Section 75 protections mean Brits who are credit-worthy tend to pay for large purchases on a [credit] card even if they intend to pay it off immediately.
> The Section 75 protections mean Brits who are credit-worthy tend to pay for large purchases on a [credit] card even if they intend to pay it off immediately.
And Visa and Mastercard's global zero liability provisions protect everybody with a debit card, so de facto the difference is no longer relevant.
That said, some banks are pretty bad at making use of their dispute rights with the networks. I've seen several German issuers actually refuse to file "service not provided" disputes in case of a large airline bankruptcy a few years ago. (German bankruptcy managers can be somewhat intimidating rhetorically, but fortunately their personal opinions have no bearing on banking/payment laws.)
For what is worth, a few years ago, I was able to chargeback a significant furniture order after the company collapsed. It is indeed at the bank's discretion and my bank didn't really advertise the process, but the people in branch pointed me to the right place and the process was no fuss.
So, no, you do not have the same legal protection as Section 75, but it is always worth a try.
There's no reason Section 75 protections couldn't be extended to debit cards, except that in the mid-1970s banks were lobbying very hard for credit cards to become more legitimised and S75 was the successful result.
The banks took on a little bit of risk and in return unlocked a free money generator.
On the contrary debit cards are revenue-neutral or even loss-making for them
It used to be like that in Germany, it changed quite a bit. My debit card now is refused more often than my master card when I’m in Germany. I do tend to stay in large cities and not in the country side though, so my perspective is not a statistic.
But it definitely changed massively during Covid. Before Covid shops refusing _any_ card where still common (again, large cities is my spectrum) and debit card were accepted vastly more often than credit card.
Debit cards would still be used a lot more commonly than credit cards in Ireland. The UK is, I think, slightly different, due to a slightly unusual situation with disputes.
Some providers in the UK issue debit cards with limited interest-free overdraft and charge back features. So they are basically credit cards if you squint your eyes enough.
Ireland and the U.K. seem much more credit-card oriented than rest of Europe. Turkey is also very CC oriented (kinda strange - was not expecting that).