When I moved to the Netherlands, I was at first irritated that my credit cards weren't accepted anywhere. But as the debit (maestro) card transactions are often free [1], paying 3%+ to a card service does seem exorbitant. For online payments, the Dutch use the IDEAL system, which is even easier than online credit cards. This also prevents vendor lock-in, like Amazon. And, the banking apps make it super easy to send m…
Btw these high transaction fees are the reason why loyalty programs are so good in US while so bad in EU. EU caps credit card fees at around 1.5%, while in US it's much higher, so basically banks give people part of the fee in form of loyalty points