[thesimon]

>But these are just cashless and tied to our SEPA accounts (so not a credit card).

which wouldn't be a problem for shopping online if they had a Visa or MasterCard cobrand, as these can be debit and tied to your bank account as well.

It's only slowly changing with some Sparkassen issuing MasterCard debit cobranded cards in late fall (https://www.f-i.de/News/ITmagazin/Archiv/2020/Einfach-mobil-...)

[Cu3PO42]

Interestingly online payments with Maestro (what cards are commonly co-branded with right now) are possible as well with quite a few sites, but the Maestro card number is not exposed and even if you manage to get it, I believe the cards are typically not enabled for that.

That's a peculiar choice, but I assume the decision was made to appeal to the typically skeptical German market. I do wonder why it wasn't made opt-in, though.