But it has different laws so that they're not as exploitative. The card companies accepted these laws in order to get a chance at the relatively wealthy British customer base. In particular:

* Issuers have to tell you each month how much it's going to cost in total to pay off your debt gradually, which is usually a scarily enormous figure. * Issuers own the risk of buying most things with the card. If you pay £200 for a hat from an online merchant with the card, and then the merchant goes out of business without delivering, the law says the Issuer bought that hat, you owe nothing. * Issuers own the risk of card fraud. Unfortunately juries and judges both tend to believe the smartly dressed bank official in a trial, but in law all the responsibility for fraud lies with the Issuer unless they can prove it's your fault.

A lot of people like me have a credit card, and then have the issuing bank also automatically pay off the balance every month from their current account. So the effect is that their credit card is a rolling 30 day interest free loan.