indeed. my credit card requires me to preload money from my bank account. it's like there is a second account that keeps a balance that i can spend using the credit card. whenever i use it, the balance is updated. how the credit is paid off i don't know. it could be either right away, or the amount is just hidden by my bank until it is time to pay off at the end of the month. either way, the credit limit is zero. so i can never spend more than i put in first. (though this may be based on how much i spend or be a configurable value.)

So, your credit card is in practice a debit card?

yes. it is possible that i can get a real credit limit too, but i didn't check.

these debit like credit cards put a different light on the statistics. as some people here have said, europeans don't use creditcards, and then someone contradicted that with a statistic of how much is paid with credit cards. how much of those credit card payments are made with debit like cards like mine?

europe doesn't want their people to get into credit debt. possibly protection for people is stronger and makes it harder for banks to recover if people fail to pay? but most likely countries just want people to be able to protect themselves from overspending.

like i can get an overdraw limit on my bank account. it is set to a default value based on my income. but i deliberately reset that to zero. i don't want an overdraw limit. if i really need to overdraw i'll change the limit at that time and i think i can even set that it is valid only for a short time and then it resets automatically.

that is not a credit card :)

There is a point though - Mastercard and Visa treats them as "prepaid" credit cards, which are different from both true prepaid cards (as issued in the US), charge cards, and true debit cards (former Maestro and Visa Electron). Again, different regions have different lines for this, especially in Europe.

IIRC, bunq in the Netherlands issues Mastercard "credit cards" (with no "debit" annotation as on true Mastercard debit cards). They're treated as credit cards for Mastercard purposes but are backed by deposits.

it is what i get when i ask my bank for a credit card. it says credit card on it, and it is what i use when a credit card is called for.

as i said, it is possible that i can actually get a real credit limit on the card, or possibly the bank has other credit card products.