But as you just discovered, they don't work everywhere. Plenty of Dutch and German stores don't accept them. Visa and Mastercard interchange fees are nowadays capped to 0.3% by law, but they used to be 2%+ (and still are in the USA AFAICT), that's why historically Dutch and German retailers shunned them. Why pay 2% to accept a few more cards from foreigners and tourists when 99% of your customers already have a 0.3% fee card (Maestro or VPay)?
Also, the Dutch iDEAL system might form in important building block of a European home-grown payment solution, that hopefully will give the Visa/MC duopoly some actual competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative
Also, the Dutch iDEAL system might form in important building block of a European home-grown payment solution, that hopefully will give the Visa/MC duopoly some actual competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative