> in Europe, there is no reason to have a credit card instead of debit

There concrete reasons to use one in Europe (at least where I live):

It's a month's free loan - why spend your own money when you can keep it invested or otherwise working for you for a month first for free?

Consumer credit law is still stronger for paying on credit than on debit.

I used to fly transatlantic first class once a year for free based on just my credit card rewards. I'm not some unusually high earner either. What possible reason is there to turn that down?

Yeah, where I live you have exactly the same protections using credit card vs debit cards. Credit cards here don't usually have good rewards either. If you spend 10000 euros you might get 10 back in the end of the year, hardly something to hurrah for. Sometimes they give you a free TV if you open up a bank account with the bank and change to the bank to receive your monthly salary, but that's about it. So don't really have any reasons to use a credit card instead of a debit, as I only spend money I have anyways.

If I remember correctly, banks here also always give you a debit card when you sign up with them, while credit cards have to be applied for separately and also usually has a yearly fee, compared to debit cards that are free.

What do you think about the argument about it allowing you to keep your money invested for longer?

Say you're ordering something large like a car. You can pay the deposit on a debit card, and lose access to the money immediately, or you can pay on a credit card, and keep your money invested for another month or so, still earning you money, until you need to settle.

A credit card gives a consumer liquidity. I don't think it's an unusual economic concept to say that liquidity is useful and helps you use your money more efficiently.

What kind of income are you looking at for an extra month, even with a huge payment like a car (which I don't think people use credit OR debit cards for in Europe)?

I suspect for the vast majority of people it's going to be negligible at best.

In the UK, the biggest advantage of using a credit card for the first £100 of any purchase is that it makes the credit card provider jointly liable with the vendor for any failure in the contract. This is an awesome bit of consumer protection.

I've never tried buying a car with a credit card (though my credit limits are, insanely, high enough that I could).

I would guess it might be seen as a cash advance and charged interest immediately, also not accrue into the loyalty rewards. But I don't really know.

Atleast in my experience (NL, DE), a very small minority of institutions allow credit card payments. For example, online orders and food delivery. No car dealership or landlord will accept credit card, only direct debit or bank transfer.

> Meanwhile in Europe, there is no reason to have a credit card instead of debit.

Much easier to get your money back, e.g. in common 2020 situation of cancelled flights.

Again, not everywhere. Credit cards and debit cards are treated the same way here. Same process to request money back for both, and I have the same protections with both.

> This is location dependent though

Definitely true.

> Meanwhile in Europe, there is no reason to have a credit card instead of debit

Ehh, I'm not sure I'd agree 100% with this one. You can certainly get by with just a debit card (and enjoy the access to e.g. the chargeback scheme) but I find credit cards a useful tool to build credit (and my credit history built up by never missing a CC payment undoubtedly helped me out when I applied for a mortgage).

There's also the benefit of rewards which, although are smaller than in the states (because the interchange fees are better regulated), you may as well take advantage of.

I'd add a footnote to this to say: I use my CCs purely as charge cards and have a direct debit set up to this effect.

Yeah, credit history is something I never really cared about as I don't have any interest in getting a loan or touch anything else related to credit histories, so I'm probably a bit biased in that. I also guess the cost of living is so low where I live so I (together with many others) don't need to be able to take loans, not even to be able to afford a house.

Edit: not a complaint, just found it funny that someone thought of to downvote me a minute after I wrote my comment, because me and others around me don't need credit to afford a house? HN sometimes is funny.

Credit history is equally location dependent as the use of credit cards. It's simply not a thing over here. Whether you'll be granted a mortgage (usually) simply depends on whether or not you have a steady source of income that's sufficient to cover the risk. Whether or not you missed a CC payment when you were on an extended trip really doesn't factor into it. I think I prefer it this way.

> Yeah, credit history is something I never really cared about as I don't have any interest in getting a loan or touch anything else related to credit histories, so I'm probably a bit biased in that.

Fair enough! I wish that were the case in my part of the UK ;)

Building credit is not a thing in most european countries.

How do they handle assessing creditworthiness, then? Ex. someone walks into a bank and asks for a loan to buy a house. How does the bank evaluate that?

A) Do you have a job?

B) How long you've had the job?

C) How much is your salary?

D) You have family?

And so on. Bunch of questions and documents back and forth until the bank is confident you'll pay back.

It's funny to hear people from North America talking about the scary new Chinese "Social Points" system when they've had credit score for such a long time they don't even think about it anymore and find alternatives strange and hard to imagine.

The credit score in the US is based entirely upon one's assets, income, current amount of debts, and payment history. It doesn't include what one posts on social media or what political party one votes for. At least not yet.

The US credit score has nothing to do with income. In Europe if you have good income you can get a credit. As an immigrant to the US with no US credit history that is near impossible. In the US you start with the worst possible credit score and need to take on debt to prove that you are worthy to take on debt, which is crazy. As a counter example in Germany you are basically born with the perfect credit score, and you can only make it worse (e.g. by not paying back a loan).

As another person responded - based on your income and situation ( family, age, stability of the job) and very basic loan history ( stored at the central bank, basically for the lender to know if you have outstanding debts and if you've defaulted on loans before)