On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:39:45 -0500, Stephen Sprunk
wrote:

I get the impression that folks in Europe only get credit cards from the
bank that they have checking/savings accounts with.

That's not now the case in the UK, though it probably was 20 years
ago. In general it's much easier to pick and choose different
financial products from different banks than was once the case. And
there are now numerous credit cards promoted as stand-alone products,
not linked to a particular bank account, whereas the earliest British
credit cards - Access (MasterCard) and Barclaycard (Visa) - were
marketed by banks to their existing customers.

That is rare in the
US; most people get a debit/ATM card linked to their checking account,
but get their credit cards from another bank and use checks to pay the
bills.

I doubt many people in Britain still use cheques to pay their credit
card bills, in preference to instructing bill payments by phone or
Internet.

Martin