Germany has its own shitty debit card system called "girocard". And whereas other smart countries (e.g. UK) switched to international schemes, this is still the card issued to most customers. There are a few downsides of this
* No Card-Not-Present-Transactions, because the cobranding is only for abroad
* Visa/MasterCard cobranding was not allowed until a few days ago (when the EU introduced new laws)
* Used to have high minimum fees (7 cents) for a long time, so expensive for smaller transactions
* Cashback only from 20€
* No damn contactless
=> Germanys banking sector is still mostly stuck back in 2000. Debit cards are around, but mostly for cash withdraws. Smaller transactions are mostly paid in cash, because they used to be expensive and no contactless.
The big banks have no interest in changing that, because as long as card payments are unpopular, they can charge >5€ for cash withdraws if you make "out-of-network" ATM withdraws.
tl;dr: Germany has its own shitty debit card system stuck in 2000 which sucks.
* No Card-Not-Present-Transactions, because the cobranding is only for abroad
* Visa/MasterCard cobranding was not allowed until a few days ago (when the EU introduced new laws)
* Used to have high minimum fees (7 cents) for a long time, so expensive for smaller transactions
* Cashback only from 20€
* No damn contactless
=> Germanys banking sector is still mostly stuck back in 2000. Debit cards are around, but mostly for cash withdraws. Smaller transactions are mostly paid in cash, because they used to be expensive and no contactless.
The big banks have no interest in changing that, because as long as card payments are unpopular, they can charge >5€ for cash withdraws if you make "out-of-network" ATM withdraws.
tl;dr: Germany has its own shitty debit card system stuck in 2000 which sucks.