What is the difference between a debit card and a credit card?

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1. 1

   Debit card (Wikipedia)

   WikipediaPublished Oct 10, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “A debit card, also known as a check card, cheque card or bank card, is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The card usually consists of the bank's name, a card number, the cardholder's name, and an expiration date, on either the front or the back. Many new cards now have a chip on them, which allows people to use their card by touch (contactless), or by inserting the card and keying in a PIN as with swiping the magnetic stripe. Debit cards are similar to a credit card, but the money for the purchase must be in the cardholder's bank account at the time of the purchase and is immediately transferred directly from that account to the merchant's account to pay for the purchase. Some debit cards carry a stored value with which a payment is made (prepaid cards), but most relay a message to the cardholder's bank to withdraw funds from the cardholder's designated bank account. In some cases, the payment card number is assigned exclusively for use on the Internet, and there is no physical card. This is referred to as a virtual card.”

2. 2

   Gross Negligence in Bank Payments Law.

   Oxford journal of legal studies (Braithwaite)Published Feb 2, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “The law's allocation of responsibility for disputed bank payments is important not only for banks and customers, but also, given the volume and value of payments, for the economy more broadly. This article examines loss allocation under common law, EU-UK regulation and the UK's 'world-first' scheme for 'authorised push payment' frauds, showing that the gross negligence standard of customer conduct is a common feature. Indeed, this 'slippery concept' sits at critical junctures, providing, in practice, the most relevant limitation to a bank's liability to refund payments. The article analyses what this standard means in English common law and in its regulatory contexts, and highlights the important connection between the two. It then draws upon decisions by the UK's Financial Ombudsman Service, amongst other sources, to explore how evaluating bank customer conduct works in practice, concluding that it is time for regulators to rethink the status quo.”

3. 3

   Unsecured Credit and the Social Safety Net in U.S. States.

   American sociological review (Rhodes et al.)Published Feb 22, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “states. We provide new empirical insights on the credit-welfare state nexus by leveraging a large national sample of credit record data that allows us to distinguish between credit instruments. We link these data to a comprehensive dataset on state safety nets with comparable measures of program supportiveness. We estimate two-way fixed-effects models that exploit temporal variation within states in safety net supportiveness. We find that living in states with more supportive safety nets is associated with a lower probability of high-cost alternative payday, installment and personal finance loan use, and a higher probability of mainstream credit card access, particularly among low-income households. In the context of the relative inadequacy of the U.S. safety net, state safety net supportiveness matters less for whether people borrow than for what credit instruments they use. Our findings suggest that efforts to restrict the U.S. safety net are likely to increase reliance on high-cost loans among low-income households, furthering the unequal burden of interest and fees levied on these households.”

4. 4

   Swipe now, regret later? How credit cards reduce the appeal of safe choices.

   Frontiers in psychology (Hung et al.)Published Jun 4, 2025Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “Most research on the influence of decision-making on the compromise effect has focused on paying with cash rather than with a credit card. The experimental investigations of this paper revealed that the compromise effect was reduced when consumers paid with a credit card rather than with cash, and that the pain of paying played a mediating role between the payment form and the occurrence of the compromise effect. In addition, the authors successfully excluded alternative explanations such as differences in price, product category, and attribute importance. Finally, this paper showed that the impact of cash payments on the compromise effect was stronger among tightwads than among spendthrifts.”