[throwaway270925]

What are you talking about? When have you last been to Europe!? Of course you can pay with debit cards all over Europe, every card terminal accepts them!

Online the same, you just use your card details like a credit card, the payment system is the same for years now anyway - thats the whole point of initiatives like this digital euro and Wero!

[AnssiH]

Direct debit is not the same as debit card. You can pay in physical stores with debit card but not with direct debit (which does not involve a card at all).

[lxgr]

Yes, that's what I was getting at.

As a side note, in some countries, it is actually possible to initiate a direct debit at the POS (since cards sometimes contain enough information to recover the IBAN, mostly for historical reasons), but this has significant risks for the merchant and is usually not worth the hassle as debit card fees are very low anyway.

[lxgr]

What number are you entering online? If it's not an IBAN but something starting with a 4 or 5, you're very likely using Visa or Mastercard, or possibly a domestic scheme. This is not the same thing at all as a direct debit, which nowadays runs on SEPA Direct Debit rails.

The Digital Euro does not exist yet, and Wero is yet another scheme (settling via SEPA instant credit transfers, I believe, but that's more of an implementation detail and doesn't change the fact that it is its own scheme with its own rules).