Australians absolutely have credit cards. The previous poster seems to be getting their information from a single Aussie.
I couldn’t find numbers specifically for the percentage of people who have at least one card, but the total number of CC accounts indicates that it’s likely that the majority of working adults have one. That being said, credit card usage is low compared to other countries, I suspect because the government made the banks get together and create a universal electronic payment network in the 1980s, and we’ve all been used to paying virtually anywhere with our regular ATM cards, direct from our normal bank accounts, for decades. Credit cards are primarily used for, y’know, credit, and not just everyday transactions.
And for all the talk of the credit card companies, my personal experience with online payment processors has been that they often won’t accept Cirrus or VISA Debit cards, or at least not cards issued outside their own country. So online shopping can be difficult without a credit card.
I just want to be clear, what my post meant to say is that it’s (apparently) not as common to use a credit card like you would in North America (basically a necessity if you want to get a car, apartment house, etc).
This person that I got the information from was very up in arms about this, so I’m not sure why they would lie about this. Again, I looked this up after. You can find posts about people discussing this very issue from a month ago.
My whole point wasn’t even about the credit cards. It’s about the anti-privacy laws.
Australians absolutely have credit cards. The previous poster seems to be getting their information from a single Aussie.
I couldn’t find numbers specifically for the percentage of people who have at least one card, but the total number of CC accounts indicates that it’s likely that the majority of working adults have one. That being said, credit card usage is low compared to other countries, I suspect because the government made the banks get together and create a universal electronic payment network in the 1980s, and we’ve all been used to paying virtually anywhere with our regular ATM cards, direct from our normal bank accounts, for decades. Credit cards are primarily used for, y’know, credit, and not just everyday transactions.
And for all the talk of the credit card companies, my personal experience with online payment processors has been that they often won’t accept Cirrus or VISA Debit cards, or at least not cards issued outside their own country. So online shopping can be difficult without a credit card.
I just want to be clear, what my post meant to say is that it’s (apparently) not as common to use a credit card like you would in North America (basically a necessity if you want to get a car, apartment house, etc).
This person that I got the information from was very up in arms about this, so I’m not sure why they would lie about this. Again, I looked this up after. You can find posts about people discussing this very issue from a month ago.
My whole point wasn’t even about the credit cards. It’s about the anti-privacy laws.