I guess the biggest difference from US is that you need to earn the Kreditkarte, not everyone gets to own one if the bank account isn't that inspiring, and even after getting one, the limits depend on how healthy the bank account tends to be on average.
These things can and do vary regionally, but at least here (working class Berlin area), "Kreditkarte" or simply "Karte" is colloquially used for all plastic cards that are not Girokarten, when discussing in German (I'm a near-native speaker), regardless of whether or not it's revolving credit or direct debit. This could certainly be regional, but at least here, this includes in government buildings: "Keine Kreditzahlung möglich" (no payment with credit card possible) is used semi-interchangeably with "Keine Kartenzahlung möglich" (no payment with card possible -- note no explicit "credit"), and it means that they don't have any payment terminals that work with visa/mastercard payment processing, regardless of whether it's based on revolving credit or direct debit. Note that "Keine Kartenzahlung möglich" may also mean that Girokarten cannot be used, or it may say something like "Kartenzahlung nur eingeschränkt möglich" (card payment only limitedly possible). This can vary even from merchant to merchant and based on context: a grocery store that usually accepts Kreditkarten and Girokarten might say "Kartenzahlung nur eingeschränkt möglich" to note that their Visa/Mastercard PoS system is currently offline, but that they're still accepting Girokarten. But a bar that says "Keine Kreditzahlung möglich" is usually cash-only.
Again, I'm talking about the everyday colloquial language used by working-class people in German language (a chunk of the people I'm talking about have very limited English anyways). This is different in circles that have higher amounts of financial literacy, or more exposure to American culture. I'm not talking about the kinds of people who follow Finanzfluss (then it's a different story) or have studied/traveled to the US, and I'm also not claiming that people don't actually know the difference. I'm trying to highlight how different the two systems are based on what words are and are not in regular usage and how their meanings are different in the two countries.
Credit card is explicitly Kreditkarte.
I also speak German fluenty, including partial knowledge of some dialects, and Swiss German.
Since my last time in Berlin was 10 years ago, I'll have to take it.
For example, Zahlungsmöglichkeiten on these two pages:
[1] "Am Standort kann bar und mit girocard (mit PIN) (ehemals EC-Karte) bezahlt werden." This means nothing with Visa/Mastercard, period. Doesn't matter if you have a direct debit account or revolving credit. If you try to pay with eg an N26 Debit Mastercard, they say "Leider akzeptieren wir hier keine Kreditkarten". This language is basically standard in Berlin. When I responded with "das ist doch keine Kreditkarte, sondern eine Debitkarte" they said "ne, kommt von Mastercard, ist ne Kreditkarte. Sorry."
[2] "Zahlungen sind auch mit Kreditkarte möglich (VISA, Mastercard und Maestro)." They don't differentiate between Kredit- and Debitkarte; the only difference here is that they have Zahlungsautomaten that are integrated with the payment processors. This is a perfect example: Kreditkarte here explicitly refers to the payment processing system and not to the way the payment is booked to your account.
When Girokarte/EC-Karte are accepted, there is no guarantee that Kreditkarte are as well.
Here's another example [1, page 116] from the BMI (so, federal now): "Haben Sie ein Konto bei einer Bank oder einer Sparkasse, wird Ihnen häufig eine Giro-card oder eine Kreditkarte ausgestellt (zum Teil gegen Gebühr), mit der Sie bezahlen können. Der bezahlte Betrag wird dann automatisch von Ihrem Konto abgebucht"
> If you have an account by a bank or a Sparkasse (special kind of bank), you will often be issued a Girokarte or a Kreditkarte (sometimes for a fee), with which you can pay. The paid amount will then be automatically deducted from your account.
Note that Debitkarte isn't even mentioned, and the behavior described for both kinds of cards is the same. This is not true of Kreditkarten that operate on a revolving credit basis; the amount is not automatically deducted from your account, but rather paid later. To me, this language is pretty clear: the federal government sees the system as "you either have a Girokarte or a Kreditkarte" and that Debitkarten are included in Kreditkarten.
[1] https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/downloads/DE/publikatione...
As for the rest, I guest we are wasting each other's time discussing this any furher.
I'm not sure how to handle this because it's both incorrect in technical language (Girocards are exclusive to a particular payment infrastructure that only exists in Germany, unless partnered with a separate payment infrastructure, but the co-branded payment infrastructure is only used outside of Germany [1]) as well as incorrect with respect to my experience with everyday language, including all of the links I've provided including from official government sources.
But I agree on one thing: it's a waste of time to keep talking about this.
However, as the Maestro and VPay networks are being shut down by MasterCard and Visa, things are in the process of changing. Most payment terminals now accept MasterCard/Visa as well as Maestro/VPay, though due to EU/EEA legislation, some may only accept debit cards as well as credit cards issued outside the EU/EEA (but not credit cards issued inside the EU/EEA).
At the moment, most banks are still issuing Maestro/VPay-based debit cards, likely because a small amount of payment terminals still doesn’t accept MasterCard/Visa. However, some smaller banks have already started to issue MasterCard/Visa-based debit cards.
* Historically, ‘pinpas’ referred to cards on the domestic PIN network, which were usually co-branded as Maestro for international use. With the introduction of EMV, the PIN network was retired, but debit cards are referred to as pinpassen to this day.
Why is this? If this is about the fee-capping rules, I would have expected that they’d disallow foreign credit cards and allow EU/EEA credit cards, since the foreign credit cards are not subject to the fee cap even when used within the EU.
I’m not really sure why said legislation doesn’t end up applying to foreign cards, though.
Another interesting point about fees is that when retiring the old domestic PIN network, Dutch banks ended up negotiating very low fees for domestic debit (then Maestro) transaction. Therefore, debit can end up being a lot cheaper than credit [1].
[1] https://www.mastercard.com/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/...
> 5. What if I don’t want to accept credit card payments?
> While there is no immediate need to make this change, by the end of 2024 all merchants will be obliged to accept all card products from Mastercard and Visa, under the Honor All Cards Rule, which states that if a merchant accepts one type of that brand’s cards, they must accept them all. Merchants who accept Visa and Mastercards’ debit cards are also required to accept Visa and Mastercard’s credit cards (if they are issued outside EEA)
> This means that if you as a merchant accept any kind of Mastercard or Visa card, you must accept all Mastercards or Visa cards: debit, credit, prepaid and commercial. However, legislation does allow you, as a merchant, to refuse acceptance of credit cards issued in the EEA that are in scope of the Interchange Fee Regulation, article 10; if you wish to arrange this, you can reach out to your terminal supplier.
Strangely though, the third major bank (ABN AMRO) actually doesn't seem to mention this and only mentions EEA debit cards [3].
[1] https://www.ingwb.com/en/service/corporate-cards/debit-maste...
[2] https://media.rabobank.com/m/6ac771022c42bd61/original/Wat-g...
[3] https://www.abnamro.nl/nl/zakelijk/producten/betalen/winkels...
USA: debit cards and credit cards are both offered through banks. They operate on the same payment infrastructure (Visa, Mastercard, etc). They are all equally accepted. The only difference between them from a consumer standpoint is that a debit card immediately withdraws the money from your account and typically requires a PIN for purchases, whereas a credit card operates on credit -- ie you acquire debt when you make purchases but your bank account balance stays the same -- and usually requires just a signature, and not even always that. On a credit card, you have a (very high) interest rate, but only on balances that are carried over past the end of the month: if you pay off the entire statement balance by the due date, there's no interest. More concretely: an August statement contains all transactions for August, but you receive it during mid-September, with a due date by the end of September. So by the time you've paid your August credit, you've made more purchases, and the total balance is higher than the statement balance. You only get charged interest on the August debt that is left over after the due date; September debt continues on in limbo until its statement due date. Payment processors make money per transaction, banks make money by the ridiculously high (~20%) interest rates they charge when people don't actually pay off the statement. Both credit cards and debit cards are ubiquitous; you get a debit card any time you open a checking account, and almost everyone has a credit card (77%, and the average person has 3+ cards [1]). You do not need a savings/checking account to have a credit card account at a bank. Credit card debt is extremely widespread, currently over $1 trillion USD for the country as a whole. If a merchant says "No credit cards allowed", they may still accept debit cards, even though they operate on the same payment infrastructure.
Germany: the terms "debit card" (typically "Girokarte" or "EC Karte"; I've literally never heard someone outside of a finance context say "Debitkarte") and "credit card" ("Kreditkarte") are used almost exclusively to describe the payment infrastructure, and only the payment infrastructure. Girokarten operate on a completely different payment infrastructure and are accepted at most in-person merchants and government buildings. Meanwhile "Kreditkarte" is, at least in everyday language, only used to describe the payment infrastructure, and are not always accepted at in-person merchants, and only rarely at government buildings. If a government agency (or shop) says "No payment with Kredikarte is possible", they mean no payment with Visa/Mastercard/etc is possible. Whether it operates as an instant-debit or a revolving-credit basis is completely irrelevant. A Kreditkarte is always through Visa, Mastercard, etc, but a Girokarte never is. That's the primary difference here. Meanwhile, Kreditkarten that actually extend you credit are vanishingly rare in Germany; as a US citizen [2], I haven't even tried to find one, so I can't speak to the internal mechanics of actually having one. But I can say that the vast majority of people I've talked to here simply don't understand what the difference is in the US (I think this is compounded by the language barrier, because like many English -> German loanwords, "Kreditkarte" doesn't mean the same thing as its English root).
[1] https://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/credit-card-ow... [2] The US places large reporting requirements on foreign banks offering services to US citizens, making it very difficult to open accounts. Many foreign banks simply refuse to do business with US citizens. As with taxes, there are no exceptions for non-residents ("expats"). In some destination countries it can pose a significant burden to new immigrants.