Only about one in four Germans have a credit card

The last 30 minutes have been spent in intense self-debate about the need for it, the winning argument being how much cheaper it is in Germany compared to other nations, such as Britain thanks to the euro-pound exchange rate; while the biggest hurdle, how to explain away the heavy expense to the other half, has been successfully surmounted.

You’ve come through with all guns blazing, well-worn credit card in hand, only to be shot down at the counter: "Leider nur Bargeld, oder Maestro-Karte vielleicht” ("Unfortunately, only cash or maybe cashcard").

Something to this effect has happened to me in several German chains - Peek & Cloppenburg and Saturn among them - where I was eager to snap up something spur-of-the-moment and special, but the credit card carpet was pulled from under my feet.

My initial view was that if a High Street store doesn’t want to take my money in the way I want to pay it, then I’ll take it elsewhere.

But that’s probably a fit of pique having become well used to a UK situation in which all shops seem to accept all plastic, and in which the need to walk around with hundreds of pounds in the pocket for a particular purchase has now become rather obsolete.

*quote1*In less credit card-savvy countries, like Germany, traditional cash, a debit card offered by most banks, or even store cards, are favoured.

International chains like H&M tend to take the range of plastic, though the Germany/Poland branch of the company says most people still tend to pay by cash or Maestro-Karte.

Statistics provided by the Bundesverband Deutscher Banken (Association of German Banks) show that the situation may be slowly changing however, with credit card possession rising from 12.7 million in 1996 to 21.5 million in 2003.

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