[lxgr]

You can buy debit (or more accurately prepaid) cards in supermarkets in Europe too (which is a big and relatively diverse place, so just because that is/was not a thing in the countries you're familiar with doesn't mean it didn't exist).

[al_borland]

Prepaid cards are a separate category of cards to debit cards.

Plenty of places allow debit cards that don’t allow prepaid cards.