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0 pointscoldtea9y ago0 comments

From what I see, most people use the CB, but: "Euromonitor International, a market research company, estimated that there were just 34 million French credit cards in circulation" (0.5 per person, in contrast the US has ~4 cards per person).

Average credit card spending per French annually is $300 -- so quite insignificant compared to Americans (which would be almost half their annual salary if not more).

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mtw9y ago

A credit card in France is not the same as a credit card in the USA or Canada. In France, a purchase paid with a VISA/Mastercard is taken directly from your checkings bank account.

Yes it is called "carte de crédit" i.e. credit card but when you think about it, it is not actually credit.

In Canada, paying with VISA/Mastercard is considered as credit i.e. debt. You can pay with VISA even if at the present moment, you do not have the cash in your bank account. Banks, VISA and others like this because they will then be able to charge you 25 to 35% of the amount at the end of the month if you do not pay in time.

It does not matter then to compare average spending or number of transactions since it's two different meanings.

maxerickson9y ago

In the US, it is common to use a bank card to pay for a purchase using funds in your account using a credit card network.

So the card says "Visa", the transaction runs through Visa and the money comes directly out of the bank account. It's also common to use a different payment network (debit) and to have a card that pays for the purchase on credit. Annual rates are currently 13%-23%, so the monthly interest is 1%-2%.

kgwgk9y ago

Do you have any reference for the French "cartes de crédit" not being the same as the credit cards elsewhere?

kiyundai9y ago

disclaimer : I'm french

Strictly speaking a credit card is a "carte de credit", however between the simple translation with english, the similarities between the form factor etc, A LOT of French (especially not used to the US credit card) will call their debit card 'carte de crédit'

Their is a lot of confusion on this, but most of the time french people use debit card. In fact I think banks almost don't advertise credit card, only companies offer this (airlines/supermarket)

On the technical side, there is no difference most people have visa/mastercard

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