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China is also an interesting example of a large, increasingly developed country where credit cards are barely used: they went straight to electronic payments with Alipay/WeChat Pay. There are a number of companies in SE Asia and India trying to replicate the model, and many are starting to get traction: PayTM, GrabPay, Gojek, etc.

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As far as I know, most of these payment networks don't extend credit to customers in the same way that Visa's network enables. Consumer credit is a very powerful force that is often under-appreciated, and that benefits all parties involved in a transaction (e.g., consumers, merchants, and banks).

I feel credit-cards-as-credit is mostly an American thing, basically everyone I know in Europe treats their card effectively as a debit one, the only difference being you could not rent a car with a debit one.

Some people don't even know the difference and get surprised when their card cannot be used for some credit usages.

(That is just my anecdotal evidence, of course)

You're definitely right. Different countries have varying degrees of credit vs debit penetration. US skews more credit.

Yep. Typically the the role of credit facilities is supplied by a different class of app, eg. Klarna, Kredivo, Akulaku. Though the wallets are now providing their own, eg Alipays Check Later, Gojek & Ovos Paylater.

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