Don't try to generalise banking/credit cultures across Europe, some countries may be the same as each other but there's a wide variety.
According to https://merchantmachine.co.uk/visa-mastercard-amex/ there are very few places in Europe where AmEx is #1 for credit cards (and, being from the UK, I'm actually surprised to see UK as one of those countries... I would have bet money on Visa/Mastercard having higher market share than AmEx here, even for credit cards alone).
From personal experience: what kind of cards (both debit vs credit, and what network they're on) varies massively in different EU countries.
I had a European Visa. It was very different than my US Visa.
In the US it collects points and cashback and you can magically go above the limit if you have money on your checking account. You have to do really really crazy stuff to get a transaction rejected. It gives you insurance for car rentals and concierge services for things I never considered.
In Europe I had a Visa and a MasterCard. No points, no cash back. Couldn’t go over the limit, forced to pay everything off every month. If you don’t, card is blocked.
In the US you can (often?) pay off as little as $25 on a massive CC debt and there’s a lot of interest on what you don’t pay off. I didn’t have any interest in Europe, it just stopped working if I didn’t pay it off next month.
From what I can tell, most Americans wouldn’t recognize my European Visa or MasterCard as a credit card. It behaves like a half step between debit and credit.
Are other cards in Europe closer to the American version?
Both MasterCard and Visa offer both types of cards. I've got two different Mastercards from my bank. One that is a debit card, draws money directly from my account and stops working if there is no money in the account. The other is a credit card with a line of credit, a bill at the end of each month and an option to only pay off a small part of what I owe.
That being said the debit card version is the one you get by default, and the credit card version is something you have to ask for separately.
It varies by country, and by what companies offer to different consumers. I'm not an expert in this area, but a few examples I know of:
- In the UK, Visa/Mastercard are the most common networks used for bank debit cards, using them pulls money from your bank account directly. Most banks give most adults (citation needed, but I think) a debit card by default with an account.
- In the UK, you can apply for credit cards from a number of companies, including banks (but it's a seperate to any bank account you might have with them), and credit card only companies. Different providers offer different types of cards, and the kind of deal you can get will depend on your credit history, salary, etc. They will (nearly always) have a credit limit, which could be a few hundred or could be very large. They will have a specific rule about minimum payments - some might want your balance paid in full each month, others will ask for a minimum payment (which could be a tiny percent of the amount owed) each month. If you pay in full, you don't get charged interest. If you take longer to pay, but within the agreed terms, you'll pay some sort of interest, which could be reasonable or extremely expensive depending on the card you have. Some cards offer benefits (points or cashback, maybe other perks like special deals, concierge services, etc.) while some are purely lines of credit with no other benefits.
- In France, I was given a Visa debit card when opening a standard bank account. No experience with French credit cards.
- In Belgium, if you want a card on the Visa/Mastercard networks, you need to get a credit card - most people use debit cards which use different networks (I think they use Maestro and another one..)
I am in France and it seems Visa Premier and Mastercard Gold with payments deferred to the end of month - with zero interest - are now considered "credit cards" (because they can be regarded as a limited form of credit, I suppose).
I have a small "CREDIT" label next to the chip of my new card and airlines (EasyJet, Ryanair...) now reject my card if I select the cheaper "Debit card" payment option.
I have bonus points on some cards and cash back on other. All include stuff like travel insurance if I pay > 50% of the trip with the card. I can not go over the limit based on how much money I have in the bank since the cards are not connected to my bank account. But my limit is not a problem since some increase it without me asking and the only time I have needed to increase it on a card I could do that online in two minutes. I select how much of the balance I want to pay back each month, if I pay all there is no interest if I pay parts the interest is high and the CC company makes money
You probably ended up with some kind of crappy "starter" not-really-a-credit card due to a lack of credit history in the relevant country. Those exist in the US too. It's odd that you call it a "European visa". Different European countries have different banking systems. In the UK at least, credit cards work the same as in the US.
You're overgeneralising. As a European I have four Visa cards in my wallet, two of which behave like your "US Visa" and two of which behave like your "European Visa".
According to https://merchantmachine.co.uk/visa-mastercard-amex/ there are very few places in Europe where AmEx is #1 for credit cards (and, being from the UK, I'm actually surprised to see UK as one of those countries... I would have bet money on Visa/Mastercard having higher market share than AmEx here, even for credit cards alone).
From personal experience: what kind of cards (both debit vs credit, and what network they're on) varies massively in different EU countries.