I don&#x27;t understand. Isn&#x27;t there something in the US like `Bancontact&#x27; ? In Belgium (and, I believe, Germany, The Netherlands, France, etc.) your bank issues you a `debit&#x27; card that could act as a credit card but it&#x27;s not its first use or purpose. When you pay with it you slide it into a terminal, enter your pin and validates the transaction. The money is then transferred from your bank account to the merchant&#x27;s one. There&#x27;s only one intermediate between banks and it&#x27;s the service provider (whose name escapes me at the moment) and there are 0 fees applied. It&#x27;s on the merchant and it&#x27;s not percentage based but transaction based (much less than 5ç I believe but the merchant has to rent the terminal).<p>There are basic insurance for card stealing that covers `some&#x27; things and you can buy larger ones if needed.<p>Why is the credit card the default in the US ?