This is a uniquely American viewpoint. In most of Europe you don't buy anything on credit ever.
Airbnb reservations I also tend to do on credit.
Anything related to company expenses I also do on credit and receive reimbursement prior to having to pay it myself.
The only time I even considered it was to build a credit score in the UK to eventually apply for a mortgage, but even then it's not really necessary.
Not having a credit score isn't necessarily a big problem, as banks use it for context rather than making decisions purely based on it, but I did see some advice online about getting a "credit builder card" [1] (essentially a high interest and low credit limit card) as a way to build up credit history.
I decided that getting in debt just so I can prove I can get out of it is a stupid system, and didn't do it. Last time I checked (with Experian), I had a perfect credit score, so I don't know what happened in the meantime.
1: https://www.experian.co.uk/consumer/credit-cards/types/credi...
There are also official debt registries, where you (and prospective lenders) can look up how much debt you have.
A bit different than the credit score concept.
In Moldova where I'm from, only 8% of adults have one.
Besides, if you want insurance just get a 30€ per year rolling package.
My credit card has a yearly fee of €36 (and it’s not like having a debit card instead would have been free). The total annual insurance premiums of all insurances that it includes (travel, third party liability, purchase) would exceed €200 from the same provider.
By December 2025, consumer credit in the Euro area alone stood at an estimated €812 billion.
Sure, in Europe people will subscribe to a credit to buy a car or materials to improve their home.
But buying your groceries or lunch with a credit card is quite a rare exception.
It also varies greatly by country, but all major European countries still have significant credit card (not consumer, so excluding e.g. car loans) debt, with the most "credit willing" countries like the UK reaching around 1/3 the US average credit card balance (but you'd also want to adjust for average salaries before comparing these). There is no single attitude to this across Europe.
You could draw all of it and put in a a 2x leveraged SP500 ETF :-D for 3 month and then return the money :-D
1) physical card, which works like a credit card. 2) You can flex payments you made on your regular card.
The rules are the same. If it was a card purchase it will more than likely flex (it will if you used the Flex card, account it will depend on the type of transaction.) But it needs to be used for purchases. I guess you could set up a CC processing unit and pay yourself, but it somehow doesn't seem worth it. You can't flex a bank transfer for example.
When you Flex, it gives you the option to "pay on next payment cycle", "pay in 3 installments with 0 interest", "pay in 6/12 installments with the usual big interest". But you can at any point pay it off and so you could do it over 4 months and only pay minimal interest and you could pay over the amount due and make it pay off quicker.
Imagine if all the shares in Bank X were paid for by loans issued by Bank X.
The widespread use with "buy now pay later" also counters your wildly baseless claim. Klarna, PayPal 30 days etc.
